Life according to my favourite composer.

'I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness. And yet I take a kind of pleasure in indulging them.'

Cheerful old fellow, this Chopin. I stumbled upon a collection of quotes and was impressed, although not surprised, by the intensity of his depression. The master of romantic piano music really needs to watch more Monty Python.

Here he is describing his accomodation whilst staying at Majorca:

'It's a huge Carthusian monastery, stuck down between rocks and sea, where you may imagine me, without white gloves or haircurling, as pale as ever, in a cell with such doors as Paris never had for gates. '

I could live without curlers, but white gloves are a necessity. Watch this space for more paleness.

Here he goes again, expressing my own and everyone's great doubts about it all:

'I am gay on the outside [...] but inside something gnaws at me; some presentiment, anxiety, dreams - or sleeplessness - melancholy, indifference - desire for life, and the next instant, desire for death.'

And finally, a long, long parade of doom and gloom:

'This bed on which I shall lie has been slept on by more than one dying man, but today it does not repel me! Who knows what corpses have lain on it and for how long? But is a corpse any worse than I? A corpse too knows nothing of its father, mother or sisters or Titus. Nor has a corpse a sweetheart. A corpse, too, is pale, like me. (There we go.) A corpse is cold, just as I am cold and indifferent to everything. A corpse has ceased to live, and I too have had enough of life.... Why do we live on through this wretched life which only devours us and serves to turn us into corpses? The clocks in the Stuttgart belfries strike the midnight hour. Oh how many people have become corpses at this moment! Mothers have been torn from their children, children from their mothers - how many plans have come to nothing, how much sorrow has sprung from these depths, and how much relief!... Virtue and vice have come in the end to the same thing! It seems that to die is man's finest action - and what might be his worst? To be born, since that is the exact opposite of his best deed. It is therefore right of me to be angry that I was ever born into this world! Why was I not prevented from remaining in a world where I am utterly useless? What good can my existence bring to anyone? ... But wait, wait! What's this? Tears? How long it is since they flowed! How is this, seeing that an arid melancholy has held me for so long in its grip? How good it feels - and sorrowful. Sad but kindly tears! What a strange emotion! Sad but blessed. It is not good for one to be sad, and yet how pleasant it is.'

Aspiring psychologists take note: here is a case study that can be diagnosed with just about anything. Great thesis topic.

Aspiring musicians: buy the nocturnes. And if you know any aspiring inventors named Doc, sign me up for the nineteenth century.

There's just no end to the monty python references.