His usual language was always elegant, with well chosen words, but at last to express all his thankfulness and, at the same time, all the misery of those who die unreconciled to God, he cried, “Without you I should have croaked (krepiren) like a pig.”

  While dying he still called on the names of Jesus, Mary,
  Joseph, kissed the crucifix and pressed it to his heart with
  the cry “Now I am at the source of Blessedness!”

  Thus died Chopin, and in truth, his death was the most
  beautiful concerto of all his life.

The worthy abbe must have had a phenomenal memory.  I hope that it was an exact one.  His story is given in its entirety because of its novelty.  The only thing that makes me feel in the least sceptical is that La Mara,—­the pen name of a writer on musical subjects,—­translated these letters into German.  But every one agrees that Chopin’s end was serene; indeed it is one of the musical death-beds of history, another was Mozart’s.  His face was beautiful and young in the flower-covered coffin, says Liszt.  He was buried from the Madeleine, October 30, with the ceremony befitting a man of genius.  The B flat minor Funeral march, orchestrated by Henri Reber, was given, and during the ceremony Lefebure-Wely played on the organ the E and B minor Preludes.  The pall-bearers were distinguished men, Meyerbeer, Delacroix, Pleyel and Franchomme—­at least Theophile Gautier so reported it for his journal.  Even at his grave in Pere la Chaise no two persons could agree about Chopin.  This controversy is quite characteristic of Chopin who was always the calm centre of argument.

He was buried in evening clothes, his concert dress, but not at his own request.  Kwiatowski the portrait painter told this to Niecks.  It is a Polish custom for the dying to select their grave clothes, yet Lombroso writes that Chopin “in his will directed that he should be buried in a white tie, small shoes and short breeches,” adducing this as an evidence of his insanity.  He further adds “he abandoned the woman whom he tenderly loved because she offered a chair to some one else before giving the same invitation to himself.”  Here we have a Sand story raised to the dignity of a diagnosed symptom.  It is like the other nonsense.

IV.  THE ARTIST

Chopin’s personality was a pleasant, persuasive one without being so striking or so dramatic as Liszt’s.  As a youth his nose was too large, his lips thin, the lower one protruding.  Later, Moscheles said that he looked like his music.  Delicacy and a certain aristrocratic bearing, a harmonious ensemble, produced a most agreeable sensation.  “He was of slim frame, middle height; fragile but wonderfully flexible limbs, delicately formed hands, very small feet, an oval, softly outlined head, a pale transparent complexion, long silken hair of a light chestnut color,