CHAPTER V.
The Lives of Artists--Pure Fame of Chopin--Reserve--Classic and Romantic Art-Language of the Sclaves--Chopin's Love of Home Memories.
A natural curiosity is generally felt to know something of the lives of men who have consecrated their genius to embellish noble feelings through works of art, through which they shine like brilliant meteors in the eyes of the surprised and delighted crowd.

The admiration and sympathy awakened by the compositions of such men, attach immediately to their own names, which are at once elevated as symbols of nobility and greatness, because the world is loath to believe that those who can express high sentiments with force, can themselves feel ignobly.

The objects of this benevolent prejudice, this favorable presumption, are expected to justify such suppositions by the high course of life which they are required to lead.

When it is seen that the poet feels with such exquisite delicacy all that which it is so sweet to inspire; that he divines with such rapid intuition all that pride, timidity, or weariness struggles to hide; that he can paint love as youth dreams it, but as riper years despair to realize it; when such sublime situations seem to be ruled by his genius, which raises itself so calmly above the calamities of human destiny, always finding the leading threads by which the most complicated knots in the tangled skein of life may be proudly and victoriously unloosed; when the secret modulations of the most exquisite tenderness, the most heroic courage, the most sublime simplicity, are known to be subject to his command,--it is most natural that the inquiry should be made if this wondrous divination springs from a sincere faith in the reality of the noble feelings portrayed, or whether its source is to be found in an acute perception of the intellect, an abstract comprehension of the logical reason.
The question in what the life led by men so enamored of beauty differs from that of the common multitude, is then earnestly asked.

This high poetic disdain,--how did it comport itself when struggling with material interests?
These ineffable emotions of ethereal love,--how were they guarded from the bitterness of petty cares, from that rapidly growing and corroding mould which usually stifles or poisons them?
How many of such feelings were preserved from that subtle evaporation which robs them of their perfume, that gradually increasing inconstancy which lulls us until we forget to call the dying emotions to account?
Those who felt such holy indignation,--were they indeed always just?
Those who exalted integrity,--were they always equitable?
Those who sung of honor,--did they never stoop?
Those who so admired fortitude,--have they never compromised with their own weakness?
A deep interest is also felt in ascertaining how those to whom the task of sustaining our faith in the nobler sentiments through art has been intrusted, have conducted themselves in external affairs, where pecuniary gain is only to be acquired at the expense of delicacy, loyalty, or honor.