Edinburgh, February, 1902.

PROEM.

POLAND AND THE POLES.

THE works of no composer of equal importance bear so striking a national
impress as those of Chopin. It would, however, be an error to attribute
this simply and solely to the superior force of the Polish musician's
patriotism. The same force of patriotism in an Italian, Frenchman,
German, or Englishman would not have produced a similar result.
Characteristics such as distinguish Chopin's music presuppose a nation
as peculiarly endowed, constituted, situated, and conditioned, as the
Polish--a nation with a history as brilliant and dark, as fair and
hideous, as romantic and tragic. The peculiarities of the peoples
of western Europe have been considerably modified, if not entirely
levelled, by centuries of international intercourse; the peoples of the
eastern part of the Continent, on the other hand, have, until recent
times, kept theirs almost intact, foreign influences penetrating to no
depth, affecting indeed no more than the aristocratic few, and them only
superficially. At any rate, the Slavonic races have not been moulded by
the Germanic and Romanic races as these latter have moulded each other:
east and west remain still apart--strangers, if not enemies. Seeing how
deeply rooted Chopin's music is in the national soil, and considering
how little is generally known about Poland and the Poles, the necessity
of paying in this case more attention to the land of the artist's birth
and the people to which he belongs than is usually done in biographies
of artists, will be admitted by all who wish to understand fully and
appreciate rightly the poet-musician and his works. But while taking
note of what is of national origin in Chopin's music, we must be careful
not to ascribe to this origin too much. Indeed, the fact that the
personal individuality of Chopin is as markedly differentiated, as
exclusively self-contained, as the national individuality of Poland,
is oftener overlooked than the master's national descent and its
significance with regard to his artistic production. And now, having
made the reader acquainted with the raison d'etre of this proem, I shall
plunge without further preliminaries in medias res.

The palmy days of Poland came to an end soon after the extinction of
the dynasty of the Jagellons in 1572. So early as 1661 King John Casimir
warned the nobles, whose insubordination and want of solidity, whose
love of outside glitter and