These facts indicate that he composed mentally, although, no
doubt, during the improvisations, many themes occurred to him which he
remembered and utilized. When he improvised he did not watch the
key-board, but generally looked at the ceiling. Already as a youth he
used to be so absorbed that he forgot his meals; and, in the street,
he was often so absent-minded that he very narrowly escaped being run
over by a wagon. Visions of female loveliness and patriotic
reminiscences inspired many of his best works. Sometimes the pictures
in his mind became so vivid as to form real hallucinations. Thus it
is related that one evening when he was alone in the dark, trying over
the A major polonaise which he had just completed, he saw the door
open and in marched a procession of Polish knights and ladies in
mediaeval costumes--the same, no doubt, that his imagination had
pictured while he was composing. He was so alarmed at this vision that
he fled through the opposite door and did not venture to return.
Another illustration of the relations between genius and insanity.
The foregoing remarks on Chopin's compositions suffice, I think, to
show how absurd is the prevalent notion that he is the composer for
the drawing-room, and that his pieces reflect the spirit of
fashionable Parisian society.
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