and the style of music, the masculine side of Chopin's genius.

The feminine side is chiefly embodied in the mazurkas and the
nocturnes. It has been said that the highest genius must combine
masculine with feminine traits, and it is a remarkable fact that the
works of two of the most spontaneous composers--Chopin and
Schubert--are often characterized by an exquisite feminine tenderness
and grace; as if, seeing that women have not done their duty as
composers, they had tried to introduce the feminine spirit in music.
Yet it is unfair to place too much emphasis on this side of their
genius. In their bolder moments, Chopin and Schubert are thoroughly
masculine.

It seems strange at first sight that the mazurkas, these exquisite
love poems, should be so much less popular than the waltzes, for they
are quite as melodious and much easier--although here, as elsewhere,
Chopin often introduces a few very difficult bars in an otherwise easy
composition, as if to keep away bunglers. Perhaps the cause of their
comparative neglect is, that they are so thoroughly Polish in spirit;
unless they are played with an exotic _rubato_, their fragrance
vanishes. There is more local color in the mazurkas than in any of
his other works. The Mazurs are musically a highly gifted nation, and
Chopin was impressed early in life with the quaint originality of
their melodies. No doubt some of his mazurkas are merely artistic
settings of these old love songs, but they are the settings of an
inspired jeweller. If we can judge by the number of pieces of each
class that he wrote, the mazurka was Chopin's favorite form. Even on
his death-bed he wrote one. It was his last effort, and he was too
weak to try it over on the piano. It is of heart-rending sadness, and
exquisite pathos. Perhaps it was a patriotic rather than an æsthetic