And then there is the national element, perhaps the most fascinating of all the fibres of his many-colored soul. Chopin was Polish, he loved Poland madly, yet Chopin never laid down his music to take up arms for his native land, fight or die for, as did his countrywoman Emilia Plater. Being infinitely more feminine than any woman, Chopin sang his dreams, his disillusions, into his music, and put his fiery patriotism into his polonaises. His range is not so wide as Beethoven’s; but it is quite as intense. His mazurkas, valses, nocturnes, studies, preludes, impromptus, scherzos, ballades, polonaises, fantaisies, variations, concertos, cradle-song, barcarolle, sonatas, and various dances are the most intimate music written for any instrument. A lyric poet, he touched us to the core, and with exquisite tentacles drew our soul to his. He is dead, yet a vital musical force to-day. To play Chopin one must have acute sensibilities, a versatility of mood, a perfect mechanism, the heart of a woman and the brain of a man. He is not all elegant languors and melancholy simperings. A capricious, even morbid, temperament is demanded, and there must be the fire that kindles and the power that menaces; a fluctuating, wavering rhythm yet a rhythmic sense of excessive rectitude; a sensuous touch, yet a touch that contains an infinity of colorings; supreme musicianship—Chopin was a musician first, poet afterwards; a big nature overflowing with milk and honey; and, last of all, you must have suffered the tribulations of life and love, until the nerves are whittled away to a thin, sensitive edge and the soul is aflame with the joy of death. Does this sound like mocking at the impossible? All this and much more that is subtle and indescribable are needed to interpret Chopin. And now do you see that I am right when I declare that most women play his music mechanically?