Chopin Author:James Huneker Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II PARIS:—IN THE MAELSTROM HERE, according to Niecks, is the itinerary of Chopin's life for the next eighteen years: In Paris, 27 Boulevard Poisonniere, ... more »to 5 and 38 Chausee d'Antin, to Aix-la-Chapelle, Carlsbad, Leipzig, Heidelberg, Marienbad, and London, to Majorca, to 5 Rue Tronchet, 16 Rue Pigalle, and 9 Square d'Orleans, to England and Scotland, to 9 Square d'Orleans once more, Rue Chaillot and 12 Place Ven- dome, and then — Pere la Chaise, the last resting-place. It may be seen that Chopin was a restless, though not roving nature. In later years his inability to remain settled in one place bore a pathological impress, — consumptives are often so. The Paris of 1831, the Paris of arts and letters, was one of the most delightful cities in the world for the culture-loving. The molten tide of passion and decorative extravagance that swept over intellectual Europe three score years and ten ago, bore on its foaming crest Victor Hugo, prince of romanticists. Near by was Henri Heine, — he left Heinrich across the Rhine, — Heine, who dipped his pen in honey and gall, who sneered and wept in the same couplet. The star of classicism had seemingly set. In the rich conflict of genius were Gautier, Schumann, and the rest All was romance, fantasy, and passion, and the young men heard the moon sing silvery—you remember De Musset! — and the leaves rustle rhythms to the heartbeats of lovers. " Away with the gray- beards," cried he of the scarlet waistcoat, and all France applauded " Ernani." Pity it was that the romantic infant had to die of intellectual anaemia, leaving as a legacy the memories and work of one of the most marvellous groupings of genius since the Athens of Pericles. The revolution of 1848 called from the mud the sewermen. Flaubert, his face to the past, gazed sorrowful...« less