ulchral ghastly array?
Who would willingly call them from their sheeted sleep? If our ideas,
thoughts, and feelings were indeed to be suddenly aroused from the
unquiet grave in which they lie buried, and an account demanded from
them of the good and evil which they have severally produced in the
hearts in which they found so generous an asylum, and which they have
confused, overwhelmed, illumined, devastated, ruined, broken, as chance
or destiny willed,--who could hope to endure the replies that would be
made to questions so searching?

If among the group of which we have spoken, every member of which has
won the attention of many human souls, and must, in consequence, bear
in his conscience the sharp sting of multiplied responsibilities, there
should be found ONE who has not suffered aught, that was pure in the
natural attraction which bound them together in this chain of glittering
links, to fall into dull forgetfulness; one who allowed no breath of
the fermentation lingering even around the most delicate perfumes,
to embitter his memories; one who has transfigured and left to the
immortality of art, only the unblemished inheritance of all that was
noblest in their enthusiasm, all that was purest and most lasting of
their joys; let us bow before him as before one of the Elect! Let us
regard him as one of those whom the belief of the people marks as "Good
Genii!" The attribution of superior power to beings believed to be
beneficent to man, has received a sublime conformation from a great
Italian poet, who defines genius as a "stronger impress of Divinity!"
Let us bow before all who are marked with this mystic seal; but let us
venerate with the deepest, truest tenderness those who have only used
their wondrous supremacy to give life and expression to the highest
and most exquisite feelings! and among the pure and beneficent genii of
earth must indubitably be ranked the artist Chopin!

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 e