Perchance Liszt may yet visit us; we may yet hear the matchless Pianist call from their graves in the white keys, the delicate arabesques, the undulating and varied melodies, of Chopin.  We should be prepared to appreciate the great Artist in his enthusiastic rendering of the master-pieces of the man he loved; prepared to greet him when he electrifies us with his wonderful Cyclopean harmonies, written for his own Herculean grasp, sparkling with his own Promethean fire, which no meaner hand can ever hope to master!  “Hear Liszt and die,” has been said by some of his enthusiastic admirers—­understand him and live, were the wiser advice!

In gratitude then to Chopin for the multiplied sources of high and pure pleasure which he has revealed to humanity in his creations, that human woe and sorrow become pure beauty when his magic spell is on them, the translator calls upon all lovers of the beautiful “to contribute a stone to the pyramid now rapidly erecting in honor of the great modern composer”—­ay, the living stone of appreciation, crystalized in the enlightened gratitude of the heart.

          “So works this music upon earth
          God so admits it, sends it forth. 
          To add another worth to worth—­

          A new creation-bloom that rounds
          The old creation, and expounds
          His Beautiful in tuneful sounds.”

CHAPTER I.

Chopin—­Style and Improvements—­The Adagio of the Second Concerto—­Funeral March—­Psychological Character of the Compositions of Chopin, &c., &c.

Deeply regretted as he may be by the whole body of artists, lamented by all who have ever known him, we must still be permitted to doubt if the time has even yet arrived in which he, whose loss is so peculiarly deplored by ourselves, can be appreciated in accordance with his just value, or occupy that high rank which in all probability will be assigned him in the future.

If it has been often proved that “no one is a prophet in his own country;” is it not equally true that the prophets, the men of the future, who feel its life in advance, and prefigure it in their works, are never recognized as prophets in their own times?  It would be presumptuous to assert that it can ever be otherwise.  In vain may the young generations of artists protest against the “Anti-progressives,” whose invariable custom it is to assault and beat down the living with the dead:  time alone can test the real value, or reveal the hidden beauties, either of musical compositions, or of kindred efforts in the sister arts.