heart,) by taking refuge in a region so barren.
He sought in this employment only an absorbing and uniform occupation,
he only asked from it what Manfred demanded in vain from the powers of
magic: "forgetfulness!" Forgetfulness--granted neither by the gayety of
amusement, nor the lethargy of torpor! On the contrary, with venomous
guile, they always compensate in the renewed intensity of woe, for the
time they may have succeeded in benumbing it. In the daily labor which
"charms the storms of the soul," (DER SEELE STURM BESCHWORT,) he sought
without doubt forgetfulness, which occupation, by rendering the memory
torpid, may sometimes procure, though it cannot destroy the sense of
pain. At the close of that fine elegy which he names "The Ideal," a
poet, who was also the victim of an inconsolable melancholy, appeals to
labor as a consolation when a prey to bitter regret; while expecting
an early death, he invokes occupation as the last resource against the
incessant anguish of life:

"And thou, so pleated, with her uniting,
To charm the soul-storm into peace,
Sweet toil, in toil itself delighting,
That more it labored, less could cease,
Though but by grains thou aidest the pile
The vast eternity uprears,
At least thou strikest from TIME the while
Life's debt--the minutes--days--and years."

Bulwer's translation of SCHILLER'S "Ideal."

Beschoeftigung, die nie ermattet
Die langsam schafft, doch nie zerstoert,
Die zu dem Bau der Ewigkeiten
Zwar Sandkorn nur, fuer Sandkorn reicht,
Doch von der grossen Schuld der Zeiten
Minute, Tage, Jahre streicht.

Die Ideale--SHILLER.

The strength of Chopin was not sufficient for the execution of
his intention. The occupation was too abstract, too fatiguing. He
contemplated the form of his project, he spoke of it at different times,
but its execution had become impossible. He wrote but a few pages of it,
which were destroyed with the rest.

At last the disease augmented so visibly, that the fears of his friends
assumed the hue of despair. He scarcely ever left his bed, and spoke but
rarely. His sister, upon receiving this intelligence, came from Warsaw
to take her place at his pillow, which she left no more. He witnessed
the anguish, the presentiments, the redoubled sadness around him,
without showing what impression they made up