When one was in the same salon with him, his vicinity inspired one with a certain anxiety mingled with the fascination of terror which repelled and attracted at the same time. His puns were not always of an amusing kind. Hiller also mentions Bellini's bad grammar and pronunciation, but he adds that the contrast between what he said and the way he said it gave to his gibberish a charm which is often absent from the irreproachable language of trained orators. It is impossible to conjecture what Bellini might have become as a musician if, instead of dying before the completion of his thirty-third year (September 24, 1835), he had lived up to the age of fifty or sixty; thus much, however, is certain, that there was still in him a vast amount of undeveloped capability. Since his arrival in Paris he had watched attentively the new musical phenomena that came there within his ken, and the "Puritani" proves that he had not done so without profit. This sweet singer from sensuous Italy was not insensible even to the depth and grandeur of German music. After hearing Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, for instance, he said to Hiller, his eyes glistening as if he had himself done a great deed: "E bel comme la nature!" [Footnote: I give the words literally as they are printed in Hiller's Kimmerleben. The mixture of Italian and French was no doubt intended, but hardly the spelling.] In short, Bellini was a true artist, and therefore a meet companion for a true artist like Chopin, of whose music it can be said with greater force than of that of most composers that "it is all soul." Chopin, who of course met Bellini here and there in the salons of the aristocracy, came also in closer contact with him amidst less fashionable but more congenial surroundings. I shall now let Hiller, the pleasant story-teller, speak, who, after remarking that Bellini took a great interest in piano-forte music, even though it was not played by a Chopin, proceeds thus:—

I can never forget some evenings which I spent with him [Bellini] and Chopin and a few other guests at Madame Freppa's. Madame Freppa, an accomplished and exceedingly musical woman, born at Naples, but of French extraction, had, in order to escape from painful family circumstances, settled in Paris, where she taught singing in the most distinguished circles. She had an exceedingly sonorous though not powerful voice, and an excellent method, and by her rendering of Italian folk-songs and other simple vocal compositions of the older masters charmed even the spoiled frequenters of the Italian Opera. We cordially esteemed her, and sometimes went together to visit her at the extreme end of the Faubourg St. Germain, where she lived with her mother on a troisieme au dessus de l'entresol, high above all the noise and tumult of the ever-bustling city. There music was discussed, sung, and played, and then again discussed, played, and sung. Chopin and Madame Freppa seated themselves by turns at the pianoforte; I, too, did my best; Bellini made remarks, and accompanied himself in one or other of his cantilene, rather in illustration of what he had been saying than for the purpose of giving a performance of them. He knew how to sing better than any German composer whom I have met, and had a voice less full of sound than of feeling. His pianoforte- playing sufficed for the reproduction of his orchestra, which, indeed, is not saying much. But he knew very well what he wanted, and was far from being a kind of natural poet, as some may imagine him to have been.

In the summer of 1835, towards the end of July, Chopin journeyed to Carlsbad, whither his father had been sent by the Warsaw physicians. The meeting of the parents and their now famous son after a separation of nearly five years was no doubt a very joyous one; but as no accounts have come down to us of Chopin's doings and feelings during his sojourn in the Bohemian watering-place, I shall make no attempt to fill up the gap by a gushing description of what may have been, evolved out of the omniscience of my inner consciousness, although this would be an insignificant feat compared with those of a recent biographer whose imaginativeness enabled her to describe the appearance of the sky and the state of the weather in the night when her hero became a free citizen of this planet, and to analyse minutely the characters of private individuals whose lives were passed in retirement, whom she had never seen, and who had left neither works nor letters by which they might be judged.

From Carlsbad Chopin went to Dresden. His doings there were of great importance to him, and are of great interest to us. In fact, a new love-romance was in progress. But the story had better be told consecutively, for which reason I postpone my account of his stay in the Saxon capital till the next chapter.

Frederick Wieck, the father and teacher of Clara, who a few years later became the wife of Robert Schumann, sent the following budget of Leipzig news to Nauenburg, a teacher of music in Halle, in the autumn of 1835:—

The first subscription concert will take place under the direction of Mendelssohn on October 4, the second on October 4. To-morrow or the day after to-morrow Chopin will arrive here from Dresden, but will probably not give a concert, for he is very lazy. He could stay here for some time, if false friends (especially a dog of a Pole) did not prevent him from making himself acquainted with the musical side of Leipzig. But Mendelssohn, who is a good friend of mine and Schumann's, will oppose this. Chopin does not believe, judging from a remark he made to a colleague in Dresden, that there is any lady in Germany who can play his compositions—we will see what Clara can do.

The Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik, Schumann's paper, of September 29, 1835, contained the following announcement:—

Leipzig will soon be able to show a Kalisz [Footnote: An allusion to the encampment of Russian and Prussian troops and friendly meeting of princes which took place there in 1835.] as regards musical crowned heads. Herr Mendelssohn has already arrived. Herr Moscheles comes this week; and besides him there will be Chopin, and later, Pixis and Franzilla. [Footnote: Franzilla (or Francilla) Pixis, the adopted daughter of Peter Pixis, whose acquaintance the reader made in one of the preceding chapters (p. 245).]

The details of the account of Chopin's visit to Leipzig which I am now going to give, were communicated to me by Ernst Ferdinand Wenzel, the well-known professor of pianoforte-playing at the Leipzig Conservatorium, who died in 1880.

In the middle of the year 1835 the words "Chopin is coming" were passing from mouth to mouth, and caused much stir in the musical circles of Leipzig. Shortly after this my informant saw Mendelssohn in the street walking arm in arm with a young man, and he knew at once that the Polish musician had arrived, for this young man could be no other than Chopin. From the direction in which the two friends were going, he guessed whither their steps were tending. He, therefore, ran as fast as his legs would carry him to his master Wieck, to tell him that Chopin would be with him in another moment. The visit had been expected, and a little party was assembled, every one of which was anxious to see and hear the distinguished artist. Besides Wieck, his wife, daughter, and sister-in-law, there were present Robert Schumann and Wieck's pupils Wenzel, Louis Rakemann, and Ulex. But the irascible pedagogue, who felt offended because Chopin had not come first to him, who had made such efforts for the propagation of his music, would not stay and welcome his visitor, but withdrew sulkily into the inner apartments. Wieck had scarcely left the room when Mendelssohn and Chopin entered. The former, who had some engagement, said, "Here is Chopin!" and then left, rightly thinking this laconic introduction sufficient. Thus the three most distinguished composers of their time were at least for a moment brought together in the narrow space of a room. [Footnote: This dictum, like all superlatives and sweeping assertions, will no doubt raise objectors; but, I think, it may be maintained, and easily maintained with the saving clause "apart from the stage."] Chopin was in figure not unlike Mendelssohn, but the former was more lightly built and more graceful in his movements. He spoke German fluently, although with a foreign accent. The primary object of Chopin's visit was to make the acquaintance of Clara Wieck, who had already acquired a high reputation as a pianist. She played to him among other things the then new and not yet published Sonata in F sharp minor (Op. 11) by Schumann, which she had lately been studying. The gentlemen dared not ask Chopin to play because of the piano, the touch of which was heavy and which consequently would not suit him. But the ladies were bolder, and did not cease entreating him till he sat down and played his Nocturne in E flat (Op. 9, No. 2). After the lapse of forty-two years Wenzel was still in raptures about the wonderful, fairy-like lightness and delicacy of Chopin's touch and style. The conversation seems to have turned on Schubert, one of Schumann's great favourites, for Chopin, in illustration of something he said, played the commencement of Schubert's Alexander March. Meanwhile Wieck was sorely tried by his curiosity when Chopin was playing, and could not resist the temptation of listening in the adjoining room, and even peeping through the door that stood slightly ajar. When the visit came to a close; Schumann conducted Chopin to the house of his friend Henrietta Voigt, a pupil of Louis Berger's, and Wenzel, who accompanied them to the door, heard Schumann say to Chopin: "Let us go in here where we shall find a thorough, intelligent pianist and a good piano." They then entered the house, and Chopin played and also stayed for dinner. No sooner had he left, than the lady, who up to that time had been exceedingly orthodox in her musical opinions and tastes, sent to Kistner's music-shop, and got all the compositions by Chopin which were in stock.

The letter of Mendelssohn which I shall quote presently and an entry in Henrietta Voigt's diary of the year 1836, which will be quoted in the next chapter, throw some doubt on the latter part of Herr Wenzel's reminiscences. Indeed, on being further questioned on the subject, he modified his original information to this, that he showed Chopin, unaccompanied by Schumann, the way to the lady's house, and left him at the door. As to the general credibility of the above account, I may say that I have added nothing to my informant's communications, and that in my intercourse with him I found him to be a man of acute observation and tenacious memory. What, however, I do not know, is the extent to which the mythopoeic faculty was developed in him.

[Footnote: Richard Pohl gave incidentally a characterisation of this exceedingly interesting personality in the Signale of September, 1886, No. 48. Having been personally acquainted with Wenzel and many of his friends and pupils, I can vouch for its truthfulness. He was "one of the best and most amiable men I have known," writes R. Pohl, "full of enthusiasm for all that is beautiful, obliging, unselfish, thoroughly kind, and at the same time so clever, so cultured, and so many-sided as—excuse me, gentlemen—I have rarely found a pianoforte-teacher. He gave pianoforte lessons at the Conservatorium and in many private houses; he worked day after day, year after year, from morning till night, and with no other outcome as far as he himself was concerned than that all his pupils—especially his female pupils—loved him enthusiastically. He was a pupil of Friedrich Wieck and a friend of Schumann."]

In a letter dated October 6, 1835, and addressed to his family, Mendelssohn describes another part of Chopin's sojourn in Leipzig and gives us his opinion of the Polish artist's compositions and playing:—

The day after I accompanied the Hensels to Delitzsch, Chopin was here; he intended to remain only one day, so we spent this entirely together and had a great deal of music. I cannot deny, dear Fanny, that I have lately found that you do not do him justice in your judgment [of his talents]; perhaps he was not in a right humour for playing when you heard him, which may not unfrequently be the case with him. But his playing has enchanted me anew, and I am persuaded that if you and my father had heard some of his better pieces played as he played them to me, you would say the same. There is something thoroughly original and at the same time so very masterly in his piano-forte-playing that he may be called a really perfect virtuoso; and as every kind of perfection is welcome and gratifying to me, that day was a most pleasant one, although so entirely different from the previous ones spent with you Hensels.

I was glad to be once more with a thorough musician, not with those half-virtuosos and half-classics who would gladly combine in music les honneurs de la vertu et les plaisirs du vice, but with one who has his perfect and well-defined genre [Richtung]. To whatever extent it may differ from mine, I can get on with it famously; but not with those half-men. The Sunday evening was really curious when Chopin made me play over my oratorio to him, while curious Leipzigers stole into the room to see him, and how between the first and second parts he dashed off his new Etudes and a new Concerto, to the astonishment of the Leipzigers, and I afterwards resumed my St. Paul, just as if a Cherokee and a Kaffir had met and conversed. He has such a pretty new notturno, several parts of which I have retained in my memory for the purpose of playing it for Paul's amusement. Thus we passed the time pleasantly together, and he promised seriously to return in the course of the winter if I would compose a new symphony and perform it in honour of him. We vowed these things in the presence of three witnesses, and we shall see whether we both keep our word. My works of Handel [Footnote: A present from the Committee of the Cologne Musical Festival of 1835.] arrived before Chopin's departure, and were a source of quite childish delight to him; but they are really so beautiful that I cannot sufficiently rejoice in their possession.

Although Mendelssohn never played any of Chopin's compositions in public, he made his piano pupils practise some of them. Karasowski is wrong in saying that Mendelssohn had no such pupils; he had not many, it is true, but he had a few. A remark which Mendelssohn once made in his peculiar naive manner is very characteristic of him and his opinion of Chopin. What he said was this: "Sometimes one really does not know whether Chopin's music is right or wrong." On the whole, however, if one of the two had to complain of the other's judgment, it was not Chopin but Mendelssohn, as we shall see farther on.

To learn what impression Chopin made on Schumann, we must once more turn to the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik, where we find the Polish artist's visit to Leipzig twice mentioned:—

October 6, 1835. Chopin was here, but only for a few hours, which he passed in private circles. He played just as he composes, that is, uniquely.

The second mention is in the P.S. of a transcendental Schwarmerbrief addressed by Eusebius (the personification of the gentle, dreamy side of Schumann's character) to Chiara (Clara Wieck):—

October 20, 1835. Chopin was here. Florestan [the personification of the strong, passionate side of Schumann's character] rushed to him. I saw them arm in arm glide rather than walk. I did not speak with him, was quite startled at the thought.

On his way to Paris, Chopin stopped also at Heidelberg, where he visited the father of his pupil Adolph Gutmann, who treated him, as one of his daughters remarked, not like a prince or even a king, but like somebody far superior to either. The children were taught to look up to Chopin as one who had no equal in his line. And the daughter already referred to wrote more than thirty years afterwards that Chopin still stood out in her memory as the most poetical remembrance of her childhood and youth.

Chopin must have been back in Paris in the first half or about the middle of October, for the Gazette musicale of the 18th of that month contains the following paragraph:—

One of the most eminent pianists of our epoch, M. Chopin, has returned to Paris, after having made a tour in Germany which has been for him a real ovation. Everywhere his admirable talent obtained the most flattering reception and excited enthusiasm. It was, indeed, as if he had not left our capital at all.



CHAPTER XVIII



1835—1837.



PUBLICATIONS IN 1835 AND 1836.—FIRST PERFORMANCE OF LES HUGUENOTS.— GUSIKOW, LIPINSKI, THALBERG.—CHOPIN'S IMPRESSIONABLENESS AND FICKLENESS IN REGARD TO THE FAIR SEX.—THE FAMILY WODZINSKI.—CHOPIN'S LOVE FOR MARIA WODZINSKA (DRESDEN, 1835; MARIENBAD, 1836).—ANOTHER VISIT TO LEIPZIG (1836).—CHARACTER OF THE CHIEF EVENTS IN 1837.—MENTION OF HIS FIRST MEETING WITH GEORGE SAND.—HIS VISIT TO LONDON.—NEWSPAPER ANNOUNCEMENT OF ANOTHER VISIT TO MARIENBAD.—STATE OF HIS HEALTH IN 1837.



IF we leave out of account his playing in the salons, Chopin's artistic activity during the period comprised in this chapter was confined to teaching and composition. [Footnote: A Paris correspondent wrote in the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik of May 17, 1836, that Chopin had not been heard at all that winter, meaning, of course, that he had not been heard in public.] The publication of his works enables us to form an approximate idea of how he was occupied as a creative musician. In the year 1835 were published: in February, Op. 20, Premier Scherzo (in B minor), dedicated to Mr. T. Albrecht, and in November, Op. 24, Quatre Mazurkas, dedicated to M. le Comte de Perthuis. In 1836 appeared: in April, Op. 21, Second Concerto (in F minor), dedicated to Madame la Comtesse Delphine Potocka: in May, Op. 27, Deux Nocturnes (in C sharp minor and D flat major), dedicated to Madame la Comtesse d'Appony; in June, Op. 23, Ballade (in G minor), dedicated to M. le Baron de Stockhausen; in July, Op. 22, Grande Polonaise brillante (E flat major) precedee d'un Andante spianato for pianoforte and orchestra, dedicated to Madame la Baronne d'Est; and Op. 26, Deux Polonaises (in C sharp minor and E flat minor), dedicated to Mr. J. Dessauer. It is hardly necessary to point out that the opus numbers do not indicate the order of succession in which the works were composed. The Concerto belongs to the year 1830; the above notes show that Op. 24 and 27 were sooner in print than Op. 23 and 26; and Op. 25, although we hear of its being played by the composer in 1834 and 1835, was not published till 1837.

The indubitably most important musical event of the season 1835-1836, was the production of Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots, which took place on February 29, 1836, and had an extraordinary success. The concert-rooms, however, concern us more than the opera-houses. This year brought to Paris two Polish musicians: Lipinski, the violinist, and Gusikow, the virtuoso on the Strohfiedel, [FOOTNOTE: "Straw-fiddle," Gigelira, or Xylophone, an instrument consisting of a graduated series of bars of wood that lie on cords of twisted straw and are struck with sticks.] whom Mendelssohn called "a true genius," and another contemporary pointed out as one of the three great stars (Paganini and Malibran were the two others) at that time shining in the musical heavens. The story goes that Lipinski asked Chopin to prepare the ground for him in Paris. The latter promised to do all in his power if Lipinski would give a concert for the benefit of the Polish refugees. The violinist at first expressed his willingness to do so, but afterwards drew back, giving as his reason that if he played for the Polish refugees he would spoil his prospects in Russia, where he intended shortly to make an artistic tour. Enraged at this refusal, Chopin declined to do anything to further his countryman's plans in Paris. But whether the story is true or not, Lipinski's concert at the Hotel de Ville, on March 3, was one of the most brilliant and best-attended of the season. [FOOTNOTE: Revue et Gazette musicale of March 13, 1836. Mainzer had a report to the same effect in the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik.]

The virtuoso, however, whose appearance caused the greatest sensation was Thalberg. The Gazette musicale announced his arrival on November 8, 1835. He was first heard at M. Zimmermann's; Madame Viardot-Garcia, Duprez, and De Beriot being the other artists that took active parts in the soiree. The enthusiasm which Thalberg on this occasion as well as subsequently excited was immense. The Menestrel expressed the all but unanimous opinion when, on March 13, 1836, it said: "Thalberg is not only the first pianist in the world, but he is also a most distinguished composer." His novel effects astonished and delighted his hearers. The pianists showed their appreciation by adopting their confrere's manipulations and treatment of the piano as soon as these ceased to puzzle them; the great majority of the rising Parisian pianists became followers of Thalberg, nor were some of the older ones slow in profiting by his example. The most taking of the effects which Thalberg brought into vogue was the device of placing the melody in the middle—i.e., the most sonorous part of the instrument—and dividing it so between the hands that they could at the same time accompany it with full chords and brilliant figures. Even if he borrowed the idea from the harpist Parish-Alvars, or from the pianist Francesco G. Pollini, there remains to him the honour of having improved the invention of his forerunners and applied it with superior ability. His greatness, however, does not solely or even mainly rest on this or any other ingeniously-contrived and cleverly-performed trick. The secret of his success lay in the aristocratic nature of his artistic personality, in which exquisite elegance and calm self-possession reigned supreme. In accordance with this fundamental disposition were all the details of his style of playing. His execution was polished to the highest degree; the evenness of his scales and the clearness of his passages and embellishments could not be surpassed. If sensuous beauty is the sole end of music, his touch must be pronounced the ideal of perfection, for it extracted the essence of beauty. Strange as the expression "unctuous sonorousness" may sound, it describes felicitously a quality of a style of playing from which roughness, harshness, turbulence, and impetuosity were altogether absent. Thalberg has been accused of want of animation, passion, in short, of soul; but as Ambros remarked with great acuteness—

Thalberg's compositions and playing had soul, a salon soul to be sure, somewhat like that of a very elegant woman of the world, who, nevertheless, has really a beautiful disposition [Gemueth], which, however, is prevented from fully showing itself by the superexquisiteness of her manners.

This simile reminds me of a remark of Heine's, who thought that Thalberg distinguished himself favourably from other pianists by what he (Heine) felt inclined to call "his musical conduct [Betragen]." Here are some more of the poet-critic's remarks on the same subject:—

As in life so also in art, Thalberg manifests innate tact; his execution is so gentlemanlike, so opulent, so decorous, so entirely without grimace, so entirely without forced affectation of genius [forcirtes Genialthun], so entirely without that boastful boorishness which badly conceals the inner pusillanimity...He enchants by balsamic euphony, by sobriety and gentleness....There is only one I prefer. That is Chopin.

As a curiosity I must quote a passage from a letter dated July 10, 1836, and addressed by George Sand to the Comtesse d'Agoult. Feelings of friendship, and, in one case at least, of more than friendship, made these ladies partial to another prince of the keyboard:—

I have heard Thalberg in Paris. He made on me the impression of a good little child, very nice and very well-behaved. There are hours when Franz [Liszt], while amusing himself, trifles [badine], like him, on some notes in order to let the furious elements afterwards loose on this gentle breeze.

Liszt, who was at the time of Thalberg's visit to Paris in Switzerland, doubted the correctness of the accounts which reached him of this virtuoso's achievements. Like Thomas he would trust only his own senses; and as his curiosity left him no rest, he betook himself in March, 1836, to Paris. But, unfortunately, he arrived too late, Thalberg having quitted the capital on the preceding day. The enthusiastic praises which were everywhere the answer to his inquiries about Thalberg irritated Liszt, and seemed to him exaggerations based on delusions. To challenge criticism and practically refute the prevalent opinion, he gave two private soirees, one at Pleyel's and another at Erard's, both of which were crowded, the latter being attended by more than four hundred people. The result was a brilliant victory, and henceforth there were two camps. The admiration and stupefaction of those who heard him were extraordinary; for since his last appearance Liszt had again made such enormous progress as to astonish even his most intimate friends. In answer to those who had declared that with Thalberg a new era began, Berlioz, pointing to Liszt's Fantasia on I Pirati and that on themes from La Juive, now made the counter-declaration that "this was the new school of pianoforte-playing." Indeed, Liszt was only now attaining to the fulness of his power as a pianist and composer for his instrument; and when after another sojourn in Switzerland he returned in December, 1836, to Paris, and in the course of the season entered the lists with Thalberg, it was a spectacle for the gods. "Thalberg," writes Leon Escudier, "est la grace, comme Liszt la force; le jeu de l'un est blond, celui de l'autre est brun." A lady who heard the two pianists at a concert for the Italian poor, given in the salons of the Princess Belgiojoso, exclaimed: "Thalberg est le premier pianiste du monde."—"Et Liszt?" asked the person to whom the words were addressed—"Liszt! Liszt—c'est le seul!" was the reply. This is the spirit in which great artists should be judged. It is oftener narrowness of sympathy than acuteness of discrimination which makes people exalt one artist and disparage another who differs from him. In the wide realm of art there are to be found many kinds of excellence; one man cannot possess them all and in the highest degree. Some of these excellences are indeed irreconcilable and exclude each other; most of them can only be combined by a compromise. Hence, of two artists who differ from each other, one is not necessarily superior to the other; and he who is the greater on the whole may in some respects be inferior to the lesser. Perhaps the reader will say that these are truisms. To be sure they are. And yet if he considers only the judgments which are every day pronounced, he may easily be led to believe that these truisms are most recondite truths now for the first time revealed. When Liszt after his first return from Switzerland did not find Thalberg himself, he tried to satisfy his curiosity by a careful examination of that pianist's compositions. The conclusions he came to be set forth in a criticism of Thalberg's Grande Fantaisie, Op. 22, and the Caprices, Op. 15 and 19, which in 1837 made its appearance in the Gazette musicale, accompanied by an editorial foot-note expressing dissent. I called Liszt's article a criticism, but "lampoon" or "libel" would have been a more appropriate designation. In the introductory part Liszt sneers at Thalberg's title of "Pianist to His Majesty the Emperor of Austria," and alludes to his rival's distant (i.e., illegitimate) relationship to a noble family, ascribing his success to a great extent to these two circumstances. The personalities and abusiveness of the criticism remind one somewhat of the manner in which the scholars of earlier centuries, more especially of the sixteenth and seventeenth, dealt critically with each other. Liszt declares that love of truth, not jealousy, urged him to write; but he deceived himself. Nor did his special knowledge and experience as a musician and virtuoso qualify him, as he pretended, above others for the task he had undertaken; he forgot that no man can be a good judge in his own cause. No wonder, therefore, that Fetis, enraged at this unprovoked attack of one artist on a brother-artist, took up his pen in defence of the injured party. Unfortunately, his retort was a lengthy and pedantic dissertation, which along with some true statements contained many questionable, not to say silly, ones. In nothing, however, was he so far off the mark as in his comparative estimate of Liszt and Thalberg. The sentences in which he sums up the whole of his reasoning show this clearly: "You are the pre-eminent man of the school which is effete and which has nothing more to do, but you are not the man of a new school! Thalberg is this man—herein lies the whole difference between you two." Who can help smiling at this combination of pompous authoritativeness and wretched short-sightedness? It has been truly observed by Ambros that there is between Thalberg and Liszt all the difference that exists between a man of talent and a man of genius; indeed, the former introduced but a new fashion, whereas the latter founded really a new school. The one originated a few new effects, the other revolutionised the whole style of writing for the pianoforte. Thalberg was perfect in his genre, but he cannot be compared to an artist of the breadth, universality, and, above all, intellectual and emotional power of Liszt. It is possible to describe the former, but the latter, Proteus-like, is apt to elude the grasp of him who endeavours to catch hold of him. The Thalberg controversy did not end with Fetis's article. Liszt wrote a rejoinder in which he failed to justify himself, but succeeded in giving the poor savant some hard hits. I do not think Liszt would have approved of the republication of these literary escapades if he had taken the trouble to re-read them. It is very instructive to compare his criticism of Thalberg's compositions with what Schumann—who in this case is by no means partial—said of them. In the opinion of the one the Fantaisie sur Les Huguenots is not only one of the most empty and mediocre works, but it is also so supremely monotonous that it produces extreme weariness. In the opinion of the other the Fantaisie deserves the general enthusiasm which it has called forth, because the composer proves himself master of his language and thoughts, conducts himself like a man of the world, binds and loosens the threads with so much ease that it seems quite unintentional, and draws the audience with him wherever he wishes without either over-exciting or wearying it. The truth, no doubt, is rather with Schumann than with Liszt. Although Thalberg's compositions cannot be ranked with the great works of ideal art, they are superior to the morceaux of Czerny, Herz, and hoc genus omne, their appearance marking indeed an improvement in the style of salon music.

But what did Chopin think of Thalberg? He shared the opinion of Liszt, whose side he took. In fact, Edouard Wolff told me that Chopin absolutely despised Thalberg. To M. Mathias I owe the following communication, which throws much light on Chopin's attitude:—

I saw Chopin with George Sand at the house of Louis Viardot, before the marriage of the latter with Pauline Garcia. I was very young, being only twelve years old, but I remember it as though it had been yesterday. Thalberg was there, and had played his second fantasia on Don Giovanni (Op. 42), and upon my word Chopin complimented him most highly and with great gravity; nevertheless, God knows what Chopin thought of it in his heart, for he had a horror of Thalberg's arrangements, which I have seen and heard him parody in the most droll and amusing manner, for Chopin had the sense of parody and ridicule in a high degree.

Thalberg had not much intercourse with Chopin, nor did he exercise the faintest shadow of an influence over him; but as one of the foremost pianist-composers—indeed, one of the most characteristic phenomena of the age—he could not be passed by in silence. Moreover, the noisy careers of Liszt and Thalberg serve as a set-off to the noiseless one of Chopin.

I suspect that Chopin was one of that race of artists and poets "qui font de la passion un instrument de l'art et de la poesie, et dont l'esprit n'a d'activite qu'autant qu'il est mis en mouvement par les forces motrices du coeur." At any rate, the tender passion was a necessary of his existence. That his disappointed first love did not harden his heart and make him insensible to the charms of the fair sex is apparent from some remarks of George Sand, who says that although his heart was ardent and devoted, it was not continuously so to any one person, but surrendered itself alternately to five or six affections, each of which, as they struggled within it, got by turns the mastery over all the others. He would passionately love three women in the course of one evening party and forget them as soon as he had turned his back, while each of them imagined that she had exclusively charmed him. In short, Chopin was of a very impressionable nature: beauty and grace, nay, even a mere smile, kindled his enthusiasm at first sight, and an awkward word or equivocal glance was enough to disenchant him. But although he was not at all exclusive in his own affections, he was so in a high degree with regard to those which he demanded from others. In illustration of how easily Chopin took a dislike to anyone, and how little he measured what he accorded of his heart with what he exacted from that of others, George Sand relates a story which she got from himself. In order to avoid misrepresenting her, I shall translate her own words:—

He had taken a great fancy to the granddaughter of a celebrated master. He thought of asking her in marriage at the same time that he entertained the idea of another marriage in Poland—his loyalty being engaged nowhere, and his fickle heart floating from one passion to the other. The young Parisian received him very kindly, and all went as well as could be till on going to visit her one day in company with another musician, who was of more note in Paris than he at that time, she offered a chair to this gentleman before thinking of inviting Chopin to be seated. He never called on her again, and forgot her immediately.

The same story was told me by other intimate friends of Chopin's, who evidently believed in its genuineness; their version differed from that of George Sand only in this, that there was no allusion to a lady-love in Poland. Indeed, true as George Sand's observations are in the main, we must make allowance for the novelist's habit of fashioning and exaggerating, and the woman's endeavour to paint her dismissed and aggrieved lover as black as possible. Chopin may have indulged in innumerable amorous fancies, but the story of his life furnishes at least one instance of his having loved faithfully as well as deeply. Nor will it be denied that Chopin's love for Constantia Gladkowska was a serious affair, whether the fatal end be attributable to him or her, or both. And now I have to give an account of another love-affair which deserves likewise the epithet "serious."

As a boy Chopin contracted a friendship with the brothers Wodzinski, who were boarders at his father's establishment. With them he went repeatedly to Sluzewo, the property of their father, and thus became also acquainted with the rest of the family. The nature of the relation in which Chopin and they stood to each other is shown by a letter written by the former on July 18, 1834, to one of the brothers who with his mother and other members of the family was at that time staying at Geneva, whither they had gone after the Polish revolution of 1830-31, in which the three brothers—Anthony, Casimir, and Felix—had taken part:—

My dear Felix,—Very likely you thought "Fred must be moping that he does not answer my letter!" But you will remember that it was always my habit to do everything too late. Thus I went also too late to Miss Fanche, and consequently was obliged to wait till honest Wolf had departed. Were it not that I have only recently come back from the banks of the Rhine and have an engagement from which I cannot free myself just now, I would immediately set out for Geneva to thank your esteemed mamma and at the same time accept her kind invitation. But cruel fate—in one word, it cannot be done. Your sister was so good as to send me her composition. It gives me the greatest pleasure, and happening to improvise the veryevening of its arrival in one of our salons, I took for my subject the pretty theme by a certain Maria with whom in times gone by I played at hide and seek in the house of Mr. Pszenny...To-day! Je prends la liberte d'envoyer a mon estimable collegue Mile Marie une petite valse que je viens de publier. May it afford her a hundredth part of the pleasure which I felt on receiving her variations. In conclusion, I once more thank your mamma most sincerely for kindly remembering her old and faithful servant in whose veins also there run some drops of Cujavian blood. [Footnote: Cujavia is the name of a Polish district.]

F. CHOPIN.

P.S.—Embrace Anthony, stifle Casimir with caresses if you can; as for Miss Maria make her a graceful and respectful bow. Be surprised and say in a whisper, "Dear me, how tall she has grown!"

The Wodzinskis, with the exception of Anthony, returned in the summer of 1835 to Poland, making on their way thither a stay at Dresden. Anthony, who was then in Paris and in constant intercourse with Chopin, kept the latter informed of his people's movements and his people of Chopin's. Thus it came about that they met at Dresden in September, 1835, whither the composer went after his meeting with his parents at Carlsbad, mentioned in the preceding chapter (p. 288). Count Wodzinski says in his Les trois Romans de Frederic Chopin that Chopin had spoken to his father about his project of marrying Maria Wodzinska, and that this idea had sprung up in his soul by the mere force of recollections. The young lady was then nineteen years of age, and, according to the writer just mentioned, tall and slender in figure, and light and graceful in gait. The features, he tells us, were distinguished neither by regularity nor classical beauty, but had an indefinable charm. Her black eyes were full of sweetness, reverie, and restrained fire; a smile of ineffable voluptuousness played around her lips; and her magnificent hair was as dark as ebony and long enough to serve her as a mantle. Chopin and Maria saw each other every evening at the house of her uncle, the Palatine Wodzinski. The latter concluded from their frequent tete-a-tete at the piano and in corners that some love-making was going on between them. When he found that his monitory coughs and looks produced no effect on his niece, he warned his sister-in-law. She, however, took the matter lightly, saying that it was an amitie d'enfance, that Maria was fond of music, and that, moreover, there would soon be an end to all this—their ways lying in opposite directions, hers eastward to Poland, his westward to France. And thus things were allowed to go on as they had begun, Chopin passing all his evenings with the Wodzinskis and joining them in all their walks. At last the time of parting came, the clock of the Frauenkirche struck the hour of ten, the carriage was waiting at the door, Maria gave Chopin a rose from a bouquet on the table, and he improvised a waltz which he afterwards sent her from Paris, and which she called L'Adieu. Whatever we may think of the details of this scene of parting, the waltz composed for Maria at Dresden is an undeniable fact. Facsimiles may be seen in Szulc's Fryderyk Chopin and Count Wodziriski's Les trois Romans de Frederic Chopin. The manuscript bears the superscription: "Tempo de Valse" on the left, and "pour Mile. Marie" on the right; and the subscription: "F. Chopin, Drezno [Dresden], September, 1835." [FOOTNOTE: It is Op. 69, No. 1, one of the posthumous works published by Julius Fontana.]

The two met again in the following summer, this time at Marienbad, where he knew she and her mother were going. They resumed their walks, music, and conversations. She drew also his portrait. And then one day Chopin proposed. Her answer was that she could not run counter to her parents' wishes, nor could she hope to be able to bend their will; but she would always preserve for him in her heart a grateful remembrance.[FOOTNOTE: Count Wodzinski relates on p. 255 of his book that at a subsequent period of her life the lady confided to him the above-quoted answer.] This happened in August, 1836; and two days after mother and daughter left Marienbad. Maria Wodzinska married the next year a son of Chopin's godfather, Count Frederick Skarbek. The marriage turned but an unhappy one, and was dissolved. Subsequently the Countess married a Polish gentleman of the name of Orpiszewski, who died some years ago in Florence. She, I think, is still alive.

Karasowski relates the affair very differently. He says Chopin, who knew the brothers Wodzinski in Poland, met them again in Paris, and through them made the acquaintance of their sister Maria, whose beauty and amiability inspired him at once with an interest which soon became ardent love. But that Chopin had known her in Poland may be gathered from the above letter to Felix Wodzinski, quite apart from the distinct statements of the author of Les trois Romans that Chopin was a frequent visitor at Sluzewo, and a great friend of Maria's. Further, Karasowski, who does not mention at all the meeting of Chopin and the Wodzinskis at Dresden in 1835, says that Chopin went in the middle of July, 1836, to Marienbad, where he knew he would find Maria and her mother, and that there he discovered that she whom he loved reciprocated his affection, the consequence being an engagement approved of by her relations. When the sojourn in Marienbad came to an end, the whole party betook itself to Dresden, where they remained together for some weeks, which they spent most pleasantly.

[FOOTNOTE: Karasowski relates that Chopin was at the zenith of happiness. His good humour was irresistible. He imitated the most famous pianists, and played his dreamy mazurkas in the manner much in favour with Warsaw amateurs—i.e., strictly in time and with the strongly-accented rhythm of common dance-tunes. And his friends reminded him of the tricks which, as a boy, he had played on his visits to the country, and how he took away his sisters' kid gloves when he was going to an evening-party, and could not buy himself new ones, promising to send them dozens as soon as he had gained a good position in Paris. Count Wodzinski, too, bears witness to Chopin's good humour while in the company of the Wodzinskis. In the course of his account of the sojourn at Marienbad, this writer speaks of Chopin's polichinades: "He imitated then this or that famous artist, the playing of certain pupils or compatriots, belabouring the keyboard with extravagant gestures, a wild [echevele] and romantic manner, which he called aller a la chasse aux pigeons."]

Unless Chopin was twice with the Wodzinskis in Dresden, Karasowski must be mistaken. That Chopin sojourned for some time at Dresden in 1835 is evidenced by Wieck's letter, quoted on p. 288, and by the above-mentioned waltz. The latter seems also to confirm what Count Wodzinski says about the presence of the Wodzinskis at Dresden in that year. On the other hand, we have no such documents to prove the presence at Dresden in 1836 either of Chopin or the Wodzinskis. According to Karasowski, the engagement made at Marienbad remained in force till the middle of 1837, when Chopin received at Paris the news that the lady withdrew from it. [FOOTNOTE: In explanation of the breaking-off of this supposed engagement, it has also been said that the latter was favoured by the mother, but opposed by the father.] The same authority informs us that before this catastrophe Chopin had thoughts of settling with his future wife in the neighbourhood of Warsaw, near his beloved parents and sisters. There he would cultivate his art in retirement, and found schools for the people. How, without a fortune of his own, and with a wife who, although belonging to a fairly wealthy family, would not come into the possession of her portion till after the death of her parents, he could have realised these dreams, I am at a loss to conjecture.

[FOONOTE: To enable his readers to measure the social distance that separated Chopin from his beloved one, Count Wodzinski mentions among other details that her father possessed a domain of about 50,000 acres (20,000 hectares). It is hardly necessary to add that this large acreage, which we will suppose to be correctly stated, is much less a measure of the possessor's wealth than of his social rank.]

Chopin's letters, which testify so conclusively to the cordial friendship existing between him and the Wodzinskis, unfortunately contain nothing which throws light on his connection with the young lady, although her name occurs in them several times. On April 2, 1837, Chopin wrote to Madame Wodzinska as follows:—

I take advantage of Madame Nakwaska's permission and enclose a few words. I expect news from Anthony's own hand, and shall send you a letter even more full of details than the one which contained Vincent's enclosure. I beg of you to keep your mind easy about him. As yet all are in the town. I am not in possession of any details, because the correspondents only give accounts of themselves. My letter of the same date must certainly be in Sluzewo; and, as far as is possible, it will set your mind at rest with regard to this Spaniard who must, must write me a few words. I am not going to use many words in expressing the sorrow I felt on learning the news of your mother's death—not for her sake whom I did not know, but for your sake whom I do know. (This is a matter of course!) I have to confess, Madam, that I have had an attack like the one I had in Marienbad; I sit before Miss Maria's book, and were I to sit a hundred years I should be unable to write anything in it. For there are days when I am out of sorts. To-day I would prefer being in Sluzewo to writing to Sluzewo. Then would I tell you more than I have now written. My respects to Mr. Wodzinski and my kind regards to Miss Maria, Casimir, Theresa, and Felix.

The object of another letter, dated May 14, 1837, is likewise to give news of Anthony Wodzinski, who was fighting in Spain. Miss Maria is mentioned in the P.S. and urged to write a few words to her brother.

After a careful weighing of the evidence before us, it appears to me that—notwithstanding the novelistic tricking-out of Les trois Romans de Frederic Chopin—we cannot but accept as the true account the author's statement as to Chopin's proposal of marriage and Miss Wodzinska's rejection at Marienbad in 1836. The testimony of a relation with direct information from one of the two chief actors in the drama deserves more credit than that of a stranger with, at best, second-hand information; unless we prefer to believe that the lady misrepresented the facts in order to show herself to the world in a more dignified and amiable character than that of a jilt. The letters can hardly be quoted in support of the engagement, for the rejection would still admit of the continuation of the old friendship, and their tone does not indicate the greater intimacy of a closer relationship.

Subsequent to his stay at Marienbad Chopin again visited Leipzig. But the promises which Mendelssohn and Chopin had so solemnly made to each other in the preceding year had not been kept; the latter did not go in the course of the winter to Leipzig, and if he had gone, the former could not have performed a new symphony of his in honour of the guest. Several passages in letters written by Schumann in the early part of 1836 show, however, that Chopin was not forgotten by his Leipzig friends, with whom he seems to have been in correspondence. On March 8, 1836, Schumann wrote to Moscheles:—

Mendelssohn sends you his hearty greetings. He has finished his oratorio, and will conduct it himself at the Dusseldorf Musical Festival. Perhaps I shall go there too, perhaps also Chopin, to whom we shall write about it.

The first performance of Mendelssohn's St. Paul took place at Dusseldorf on May 22, and was a great success. But neither Schumann nor Chopin was there. The latter was, no doubt, already planning his excursion to Marienbad, and could not allow himself the luxury of two holidays within so short a time.

Here is another scrap from a letter of Schumann's, dated August 28, 1836, and addressed to his brother Edward and his sister-in-law Theresa:—

I have just written to Chopin, who is said to be in Marienbad, in order to learn whether he is really there. In any case, I should visit you again in autumn. But if Chopin answers my letter at once, I shall start sooner, and go to Marienbad by way of Carlsbad. Theresa, what do you think! you must come with me! Read first Chopin's answer, and then we will fully discuss the rest.

Chopin either had left or was about to leave Marienbad when he received Schumann's letter. Had he received it sooner, his answer would not have been very encouraging. For in his circumstances he could not but have felt even the most highly-esteemed confrere, the most charming of companions, in the way.[FOOTNOTE: Mendelscohn's sister, Rebecka Dirichlet, found him completely absorbed in his Polish Countess. (See The Mendelssohn Family, Vol. II, p. 15.)] But although the two musicians did not meet at Marienbad, they saw each other at Leipzig. How much one of them enjoyed the visit may be seen in the following extract from a letter which Schumann wrote to Heinrich Dorn on September 14, 1836:—

The day before yesterday, just after I had received your letter and was going to answer it, who should enter?—Chopin. This was a great pleasure. We passed a very happy day together, in honour of which I made yesterday a holiday...I have a new ballade by Chopin. It appears to me his genialischstes (not genialstes) work; and I told him that I liked it best of all.

[FOOTNOTE: "Sein genialischstes (nicht genialstes) Werk." I take Schumann to mean that the ballade in question (the one in G minor) is Chopin's most spirited, most daring work, but not his most genial—i.e., the one fullest of genius. Schumann's remark, in a criticism of Op. 37, 38, and 42, that this ballade is the "wildest and most original" of Chopin's compositions, confirms my conjecture.]

After a long meditative pause he said with great emphasis: "I am glad of that, it is the one which I too like best." He played besides a number of new etudes, nocturnes, and mazurkas—everything incomparable. You would like him very much. But Clara [Wieck] is greater as a virtuoso, and gives almost more meaning to his compositions than he himself. Imagine the perfection, a mastery which seems to be quite unconscious of itself!

Besides the announcement of September 16, 1836, that Chopin had been a day in Leipzig, that he had brought with him among other things new "heavenly" etudes, nocturnes, mazurkas, and a new ballade, and that he played much and "very incomparably," there occur in Schumann's writings in the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik unmistakable reminiscences of this visit of the Polish musician. Thus, for instance, in a review of dance-music, which appeared in the following year, and to which he gave the fantastic form of a "Report to Jeanquirit in Augsburg of the editor's last artistico-historical ball," the writer relates a conversation he had with his partner Beda:—

I turned the conversation adroitly on Chopin. Scarcely had she heard the name than she for the first time fully looked at me with her large, kindly eyes. "And you know him?" I answered in the affirmative. "And you have heard him?" Her form became more and more sublime. "And have heard him speak?" And when I told her that it was a never-to-be- forgotten picture to see him sitting at the piano like a dreaming seer, and how in listening to his playing one seemed to one's self like the dream he created, and how he had the dreadful habit of passing, at the end of each piece, one finger quickly over the whizzing keyboard, as if to get rid of his dream by force, and how he had to take care of his delicate health—she clung to me with ever-increasing timorous delight, and wished to know more and more about him.

Very interesting is Schumann's description of how Chopin played some etudes from his Op. 25; it is to be found in another criticism of the same year (1837):—

As regards these etudes, I have the advantage of having heard most of them played by Chopin himself, and, as Florestan whispered in my ear at the time, "He plays them very much a la Chopin." Imagine an AEolian harp that had all the scales, and that these were jumbled together by the hand of an artist into all sorts of fantastic ornaments, but in such a manner that a deeper fundamental tone and a softly-singing higher part were always audible, and you have an approximate idea of his playing. No wonder that we have become fondest of those pieces which we heard him play himself, and therefore we shall mention first of all the first one in A flat, which is rather a poem than an etude. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that he brought out every one of the little notes with distinctness; it was more like a billowing of the A flat major chord, swelled anew here and there by means of the pedal; but through the harmonies were heard the sustained tones of a wondrous melody, and only in the middle of it did a tenor part once come into greater prominence amid the chords along with that principal cantilena. After listening to the study one feels as one does after a blissful vision, seen in a dream, which, already half awake, one would fain bring back. He soon came to the one in F minor, the second in the book, likewise one which impresses one indelibly with his originality; it is so charming, dreamy, and soft, somewhat like the singing of a child in its sleep. Beautiful also, although less new in character than in the figure, was the following one in F major; here the object was more to exhibit bravura, the most charming bravura, and we could not but praise the master highly for it....But of what use are descriptive words?

This time we cannot cite a letter of Mendelssohn's; he was elsewhere similarly occupied as Chopin in Marienbad. After falling in love with a Frankfort lady, Miss Jeanrenaud, he had gone to Scheweningen to see whether his love would stand the test of absence from the beloved object. It stood the test admirably, and on September 9, a few days before Chopin's arrival in Leipzig, Mendelssohn's engagement to the lady who became his wife on March 28, 1837, took place.

But another person who has been mentioned in connection with Chopin's first visit to Leipzig, Henrietta Voigt, [FOOTNOTE: The editor of "Acht Briefe und ein Facsimile van Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy" speaks of her as "the artistic wife of a Leipzig merchant, whose house stood open to musicians living in and passing through Leipzig."] has left us an account of the impression made upon her. An entry in her diary on September 13, 1836, runs thus:—

Yesterday Chopin was here and played an hour on my piano—a fantasia and new etude of his—interesting man and still more interesting playing; he moved me strangely. The over- excitement of his fantastic manner is imparted to the keen- eared; it made me hold my breath. Wonderful is the ease with which his velvet fingers glide, I might almost say fly, over the keys. He has enraptured me—I cannot deny it—in a way which hitherto had been unknown to me. What delighted me was the childlike, natural manner which he showed in his demeanour and in his playing.

After this short break of his journey at Leipzig, which he did not leave without placing a wreath of flowers on the monument of Prince Joseph Poniatowski, who in 1812 met here with an early death, being drowned in the river Elster, Chopin proceeded on his homeward journey, that is toward Paris, probably tarrying again for a day or two at Heidelberg.

The non-artistic events of this period are of a more stirring nature than the artistic ones. First in time and importance comes Chopin's meeting with George Sand, which more than any other event marks an epoch in the composer's life. But as this subject has to be discussed fully and at some length we shall leave it for another chapter, and conclude this with an account of some other matters.

Mendelssohn, who arrived in London on August 24, 1837, wrote on September 1 to Hiller:—

Chopin is said to have suddenly turned up here a fortnight ago; but he visited nobody and made no acquaintances. He played one evening most beautifully at Broadwood's, and then hurried away again. I hear he is still suffering very much.

Chopin accompanied by Camille Pleyel and Stanislas Kozmian, the elder, came to London on the 11th of July and stayed till the 22nd. Pleyel introduced him under the name of M. Fritz to his friend James Broadwood, who invited them to dine with him at his house in Bryanston Square. The incognito, however, could only be preserved as long as Chopin kept his hands off the piano. When after dinner he sat down to play, the ladies of the family suspected, and, suspicion being aroused, soon extracted a confession of the truth.

Moscheles in alluding in his diary to this visit to London adds an item or two to its history:—

Chopin, who passed a few days in London, was the only one of the foreign artists who visited nobody and also did not wish to be visited, as every conversation aggravates his chest- complaint. He went to some concerts and disappeared.

Particularly interesting are the reminiscences of the writer of an enthusiastic review [Footnote: Probably J. W. Davison.]of some of Chopin's nocturnes and a scherzo in the "Musical World" of February 23, 1838:—

Were he [Chopin] not the most retiring and unambitious of all living musicians, he would before this time have been celebrated as the inventor of a new style, or school, of pianoforte composition. During his short visit to the metropolis last season, but few had the high gratification of hearing his extemporaneous performance. Those who experienced this will not readily lose its remembrance. He is, perhaps, par eminence, the most delightful of pianists in the drawing- room. The animation of his style is so subdued, its tenderness so refined, its melancholy so gentle, its niceties so studied and systematic, the tout-ensemble so perfect, and evidently the result of an accurate judgment and most finished taste, that when exhibited in the large concert- room, or the thronged saloon, it fails to impress itself on the mass. The "Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik" of September 8, 1837, brought the piece of news that Chopin was then at a Bohemian watering-place. I doubt the correctness of this statement; at any rate, no other information to that effect has come to my knowledge, and the ascertained facts do not favour the assumption of its truth.

Never robust, Chopin had yet hitherto been free from any serious illness. Now, however, the time of his troubles begins. In a letter, undated, but very probably written in the summer of 1837, which he addressed to Anthony Wodzinski, who had been wounded in Spain, where civil war was then raging, occur remarks confirmatory of Mendelssohn's and Moscheles' statements:—

My dearest life! Wounded! Far from us—and I can send you nothing....Your friends are thinking only of you. For mercy's sake recover as soon as possible and return. The newspaper accounts say that your legion is completely annihilated. Don't enter the Spanish army....Remember that your blood may serve a better purpose....Titus [Woyciechowski] wrote to ask me if I could not meet him somewhere in Germany. During the winter I was again ill with influenza. They wanted to send me to Ems. Up to the present, however, I have no thought of going, as I am unable to move. I write and prepare manuscript. I think far more of you than you imagine, and love you as much as ever.

F. C.

Believe me, you and Titus are enshrined in my memory.

On the margin, Chopin writes—

I may perhaps go for a few days to George Sand's, but keep your mind easy, this will not interfere with the forwarding of your money, for I shall leave instructions with Johnnie [Matuszynski].

With regard to this and to the two preceding letters to members of the Wodzinski family, I have yet to state that I found them in M. A. Szulc's "Fryderyk Chopin."



CHAPTER XIX.



GEORGE SAND: HER EARLY LIFE (1804—1836); AND HER CHARACTER AS A WOMAN, THINKER, AND LITERARY ARTIST.



It is now necessary that the reader should be made acquainted with Madame Dudevant, better known by her literary name, George Sand, whose coming on the scene has already been announced in the preceding chapter. The character of this lady is so much a matter of controversy, and a correct estimate of it so essential for the right understanding of the important part she plays in the remaining portion of Chopin's life, that this long chapter—an intermezzo, a biography in a biography—will not be regarded as out of place or too lengthy. If I begin far off, as it were before the beginning, I do so because the pedigree has in this case a peculiar significance.

The mother of George Sand's father was the daughter of the Marschal de Saxe (Count Maurice of Saxony, natural son of August the Strong, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, and the Countess Maria Aurora von Konigsmark) and the dame de l'opera, Mdlle. de Verrieres, whose real name was Madame de la Riviere, nee Marie Rinteau. This daughter, Marie Aurore, married at the age of fifteen Comte de Home, a natural son of Louis XV., who died soon after; and fifteen years later she condescended to accept the hand of M. Dupin de Francueil, receveur general, who, although of an old and well-connected family, did not belong to the high nobility. The curious may read about Mdlle. de Verrieres in the "Memoires" of Marmontel, who was one of her many lovers, and about M. Dupin, his father, mother-in-law, first wife &c., in Rousseau's "Confessions," where, however, he is always called De Francueil. Notwithstanding the disparity of age, the husband being twice as old as his wife, the marriage of M. Dupin and the Comtesse de Home proved to be a very happy one. They had one child, a son, Maurice Francois Elisabeth Dupin. He entered the army in 1798, and two years later, in the course of the Italian campaign, became first lieutenant and then aide-de-camp to General Dupont.

In Italy and about the same time Maurice Dupin saw and fell in love with Sophie Victoire Antoinette Delaborde, the daughter of a Paris bird-seller, who had been a supernumerary at some small theatre, and whose youth, as George Sand delicately expresses it, "had by the force of circumstances been exposed to the most frightful hazards." Sacrificing all the advantages she was then enjoying, she followed Maurice Dupin to France. From this liaison sprang several children, all of whom, however, except one, died very young. A month before the birth of her in whom our interest centres, Maurice Dupin married Sophie Delaborde. The marriage was a civil one and contracted without the knowledge of his mother, who was opposed to this union less on account of Sophie's plebeian origin than of her doubtful antecedents.

It was on July 5, 1804, that Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, who under the name of George Sand became famous all the world over, saw for the first time the light of day. The baby, which by a stratagem was placed in the arms of her grandmother, mollified the feelings of the old lady, whom the clandestine marriage had put in a great rage, so effectually that she forgave her son, received his wife, and tried to accommodate herself to the irremediable. After the Spanish campaign, during which he acted as aide-de-camp to Murat, Maurice Dupin and his family came to Nohant, his mother's chateau in Berry. There little Aurora lost her father when she was only four years old. Returning home one evening from La Chatre, a neighbouring town, he was thrown off his horse, and died almost instantly.

This was an event that seriously affected the future of the child, for only the deceased could keep in check the antagonism of two such dissimilar characters as those of Aurora's mother and grandmother. The mother was "dark-complexioned, pale, ardent, awkward and timid in fashionable society, but always ready to explode when the storm was growling too strongly within"; her temperament was that "of a Spaniard—jealous, passionate, choleric, and weak, perverse and kindly at the same time." Abbe Beaumont (a natural son of Mdlle. de Verrieres and the Prince de Turenne, Duke de Bouillon, and consequently grand-uncle of Aurora) said of her that she had a bad head but a good heart. She was quite uneducated, but had good natural parts, sang charmingly, and was clever with her hands. The grandmother, on the other hand, was "light-complexioned, blonde, grave, calm, and dignified in her manners, a veritable Saxon of noble race, with an imposing demeanour full of ease and patronising goodness." She had been an assiduous student of the eighteenth century philosophers, and on the whole was a lady of considerable culture. For about two years these two women managed to live together, not, however, without a feeling of discord which was not always successfully suppressed, and sometimes broke out into open dissension. At last they came to an arrangement according to which the child was to be left in the keeping of the grandmother, who promised her daughter-in-law a yearly allowance which would enable her to take up her abode in Paris. This arrangement had the advantage for the younger Madame Dupin that she could henceforth devote herself to the bringing-up of another daughter, born before her acquaintance with Aurora's father.

From her mother Aurora received her first instruction in reading and writing. The taste for literary composition seems to have been innate in her, for already at the age of five she wrote letters to her grandmother and half-brother (a natural son of her father's). When she was seven, Deschartres, her grandmother's steward, who had been Maurice Dupin's tutor, began to teach her French grammar and versification, Latin, arithmetic, botany, and a little Greek. But she had no liking for any of these studies. The dry classifications of plants and words were distasteful to her; arithmetic she could not get into her head; and poetry was not her language. History, on the other hand, was a source of great enjoyment to her; but she read it like a romance, and did not trouble herself about dates and other unpleasant details. She was also fond of music; at least she was so as long as her grandmother taught her, for the mechanical drilling she got from the organist of La Chatre turned her fondness into indifference. That subject of education, however, which is generally regarded as the foundation of all education—I mean religion—was never even mentioned to her. The Holy Scriptures were, indeed, given into the child's hands, but she was left to believe or reject whatever she liked. Her grandmother, who was a deist, hated not only the pious, but piety itself, and, above all, Roman Catholicism. Christ was in her opinion an estimable man, the gospel an excellent philosophy, but she regretted that truth was enveloped in ridiculous fables. The little of religion which the girl imbibed she owed to her mother, by whose side she was made to kneel and say her prayers. "My mother," writes George Sand in her "Histoire de ma Vie," from which these details are taken, "carried poetry into her religious feeling, and I stood in need of poetry." Aurora's craving for religion and poetry was not to remain unallayed. One night there appeared to her in a dream a phantom, Corambe by name. The dream-created being took hold of her waking imagination, and became the divinity of her religion and the title and central figure of her childish, unwritten romance. Corambe, who was of no sex, or rather of either sex just as occasion might require—for it underwent numberless metamorphoses—had "all the attributes of physical and moral beauty, the gift of eloquence, and the all-powerful charm of the arts, especially the magic of musical improvisation," being in fact an abstract of all the sacred and secular histories with which she had got acquainted.

The jarrings between her mother and grandmother continued; for of course their intercourse did not entirely cease. The former visited her relations at Nohant, and the latter and her grandchildren occasionally passed some weeks in Paris. Aurora, who loved both, her mother even passionately, was much harassed by their jealousy, which vented itself in complaints, taunts, and reproaches. Once she determined to go to Paris and live with her mother, and was only deterred from doing so by the most cruel means imaginable—namely, by her grandmother telling her of the dissolute life which her mother had led before marrying her father.

I owe my first socialistic and democratic instincts to the singularity of my position, to my birth a cheval so to speak on two classes—to my love for my mother thwarted and broken by prejudices which made me suffer before I could comprehend them. I owe them also to my education, which was by turns philosophical and religious, and to all the contrasts which my own life has presented to me from my earliest years.

At the age of thirteen Aurora was sent to the convent of English Augustines in Paris, the only surviving one of the three or four institutions of the kind that were founded during the time of Cromwell. There she remained for the next three years. Her knowledge when she entered this educational as well as religious establishment was not of the sort that enables its possessor to pass examinations; consequently she was placed in the lowest class, although in discussion she could have held her own even against her teachers. Much learning could not be acquired in the convent, but the intercourse with other children, many of them belonging, like the nuns, to English-speaking nations, was not without effect on the development of her character. There were three classes of pupils, the diables, betes, and devotes (the devils, blockheads, and devout). Aurora soon joined the first, and became one of their ringleaders. But all of a sudden a change came over her. From one extreme she fell into the other. From being the wildest of the wild she became the most devout of the devout: "There was nothing strong in me but passion, and when that of religion began to break out, it devoured everything in my heart; and nothing in my brain opposed it." The acuteness of this attack of religious mania gradually diminished; still she harboured for some time the project of taking the veil, and perhaps would have done so if she had been left to herself.

After her return-to Nohant her half-brother Hippolyte, who had recently entered the army, gave her riding lessons, and already at the end of a week she and her mare Colette might be seen leaping ditches and hedges, crossing deep waters, and climbing steep inclines. "And I, the eau dormante of the convent, had become rather more daring than a hussar and more robust than a peasant." The languor which had weighed upon her so long had all of once given way to boisterous activity. When she was seventeen she also began seriously to think of self-improvement; and as her grandmother was now paralytic and mentally much weakened, Aurora had almost no other guidance than that of chance and her own instinct. Thomas a Kempis' "Imitation of Christ," which had been her guide since her religious awakening, was now superseded, not, however, without some struggles, by Chateaubriand's "Le Genie du Christianisme." The book was lent her by her confessor with a view to the strengthening of her faith, but it produced quite the reverse effect, detaching her from it for ever. After reading and enjoying Chateaubriand's book she set to work on the philosophers and essayists Mably, Locke, Condillac, Montesquieu, Bacon, Bossuet, Aristotle, Leibnitz, Pascal, Montaigne, and then turned to the poets and moralists La Bruyere, Pope, Milton, Dante, Virgil, Shakespeare, &c. But she was not a metaphysician; the tendencies of her mind did not impel her to seek for scientific solutions of the great mysteries. "J'etais," she says, "un etre de sentiment, et le sentiment seul tranchait pour moi les questions a man usage, qui toute experience faite, devinrent bientot les seules questions a ma, portee." This "le sentiment seul tranchait pour moi les questions" is another self-revelation, or instance of self-knowledge, which it will be useful to remember. What more natural than that this "being of sentiment" should prefer the poets to the philosophers, and be attracted, not by the cold reasoners, but by Rousseau, "the man of passion and sentiment." It is impossible to describe here the various experiences and doings of Aurora. Without enlarging on the effects produced upon her by Byron's poetry, Shakespeare's "Hamlet," and Chateaubriand's "Rene"; on her suicidal mania; on the long rides which, clad in male attire, she took with Deschartres; on the death of her grandmother, whose fortune she inherited; on her life in Paris with her extravagantly-capricious mother; on her rupture with her father's family, her aristocratic relations, because she would not give up her mother—I say, without enlarging on all this we will at once pass on to her marriage, about which there has been so much fabling.

Aurore Dupin married Casimir Dudevant in September, 1822, and did so of her own free will. Nor was her husband, as the story went, a bald-headed, grey-moustached old colonel, with a look that made all his dependents quake. On the contrary, Casimir Dudevant, a natural son of Colonel Dudevant (an officer of the legion of honour and a baron of the Empire), was, according to George Sand's own description, "a slender, and rather elegant young man, with a gay countenance and a military manner." Besides good looks and youth—he was twenty-seven—he must also have possessed some education, for, although he did not follow any profession, he had been at a military school, served in the army as sub-lieutenant, and on leaving the army had read for the bar and been admitted a barrister. There was nothing romantic in the courtship, but at the same time it was far from commonplace.

He did not speak to me of love [writes George Sand], and owned that he was little inclined to sudden passion, to enthusiasm, and in any case no adept in expressing it in an attractive manner. He spoke of a friendship that would stand any test, and compared the tranquil happiness of our hosts [she was then staying with some friends] to that which he believed he could swear to procure me.

She found sincerity not only in his words, but also in his whole conduct; indeed, what lady could question a suitor's sincerity after hearing him say that he had been struck at first sight by her good-natured and sensible look, but that he had not thought her either beautiful or pretty?

Shortly after their marriage the young couple proceeded to Nohant, where they spent the winter. In June, 1823, they went to Paris, and there their son Maurice was born. Their only other offspring, the daughter Solange, did not come into the world till fiveyears later. The discrepancies of the husband and wife's character, which became soon apparent, made themselves gradually more and more felt. His was a practical, hers a poetic nature. Under his management Nohant assumed an altogether different aspect—there was now order, neatness, and economy, where there was previously confusion, untidiness, and waste. She admitted that the change was for the better, but could not help regretting the state of matters that had been—the old dog Phanor taking possession of the fire-place and putting his muddy paws upon the carpet; the old peacock eating the strawberries in the garden; and the wild neglected nooks, where as a child she had so often played and dreamed. Both loved the country, but they loved it for different reasons. He was especially fond of hunting, a consequence of which was that he left his wife much alone. And when he was at home his society may not always have been very entertaining, for what liveliness he had seems to have been rather in his legs than in his brain. Writing to her mother on April i, 1828, Madame Dudevant says: "Vous savez comme il est paresseux de l'esprit et enrage des jambes." On the other hand, her temper, which was anything but uniformly serene, must have been trying to her husband. Occasionally she had fits of weeping without any immediate cause, and one day at luncheon she surprised her husband by a sudden burst of tears which she was unable to account for. As M. Dudevant attributed his wife's condition to the dulness of Nohant, the recent death of her grandmother, and the air of the country, he proposed a change of scene, which he did the more readily as he himself did not in the least like Berry. The pleasant and numerous company they found in the house of the friends with whom they went to stay at once revived her spirits, and she became us frolicsome as she had before been melancholy. George Sand describes her character as continually alternating between "contemplative solitude and complete giddiness in conditions of primitive innocence." It is hardly to be wondered at that one who exhibited such glaring and unaccountable contrasts of character was considered by some people whimsical (bizarre) and by her husband an idiot. She herself admits the possibility that he may not have been wrong. At any rate, little by little he succeeded in making her feel the superiority of reason and intelligence so thoroughly that for a long time she was quite crushed and stupefied in company. Afraid of finding themselves alone at Nohant, the ill-matched pair continued their migration on leaving their friends. Madame Dudevant made great efforts to see through her husband's eyes and to think and act as he wished, but no sooner did she accord with him than she ceased to accord with her own instincts. Whatever they undertook, wherever they went, that sadness "without aim and name" would from time to time come over her. Thinking that the decline of her religiousness was the cause of her lowness of spirits, she took counsel with her old confessor, the Jesuit Abbe de Premord, and even passed, with her husband's consent, some days in the retirement of the English convent. After staying during the spring of 1825 at Nohant, M. and Madame Dudevant set out for the south of France on July 5, the twenty-first anniversary of the latter's birthday. In what George Sand calls the "History of my Life," she inserted some excerpts from a diary kept by her at this time, which throw much light on the relation that existed between wife and husband. If only we could be sure that it is not like so much in the book the outcome of her powerful imagination! Besides repeated complaints about her husband's ill-humour and frequent absences, we meet with the following ominous reflections on marriage:—

Marriage is beautiful for lovers and useful for saints.

Besides saints and lovers there are a great many ordinary minds and placid hearts that do not know love and cannot attain to sanctity.

Marriage is the supreme aim of love. When love has left it, or never entered it, sacrifice remains. This is very well for those who understand sacrifice. The latter presupposes a measure of heart and a degree of intelligence which are not frequently to be met with.

For sacrifice there are compensations which the vulgar mind can appreciate. The approbation of the world, the routine sweetness of custom, a feeble, tranquil, and sensible devotion that is not bent on rapturous exaltation, or money, that is to say baubles, dress, luxury—in short, a thousand little things which make one forget that one is deprived of happiness.

The following extracts give us some glimpses which enable us to realise the situation:—

I left rather sad. said hard things to me, having been told by a Madame that I was wrong in making excursions without my husband. I do not think that this is the case, seeing that my husband goes first, and I go where he intends to go.

My husband is one of the most intrepid of men. He goes everywhere, and I follow him. He turns round and rebukes me. He says that I affect singularity. I'll be hanged if I think of it. I turn round, and I see Zoe following me. I tell her that she affects singularity. My husband is angry because Zoe laughs.

...We quickly leave the guides and the caravan behind us. We ride over the most fantastic roads at a gallop. Zoe is mad with courage. This intoxicates me, and I at once am her equal.

In addition to the above, we must read a remark suggested by certain entries in the diary:—

Aimee was an accomplished person of an exquisite distinction. She loved everything that in any way is elegant and ornate in society: names, manners, talents, titles. Madcap as I assuredly was, I looked upon all this as vanity, and went in quest of intimacy and simplicity combined with poesy. Thanks to God, I found them in Zoe, who was really a person of merit, and, moreover, a woman with a heart as eager for affection as my own.

M. and Madame Dudevant spent the greater part of autumn and the whole winter at Guillery, the chateau of Colonel Dudevant. Had the latter not died at this time, he might perhaps have saved the young people from those troubles towards which they were drifting, at least so his daughter-in-law afterwards thought. In the summer of 1826 the ill-matched couple returned to Nohant, where they continued to live, a few short absences excepted, till 1831. Hitherto their mutual relation had left much to be desired, henceforth it became worse and worse every day. It would, however, be a mistake to account for this state of matters solely by the dissimilarity of their temperaments—the poetic tendency on the one side, the prosaic on the other—for although it precluded an ideal matrimonial union, it by no means rendered an endurable and even pleasant companionship impossible. The real cause of the gathering clouds and imminent storm is to be sought elsewhere. Madame Dudevant was endowed with great vitality; she was, as it were, charged with an enormous amount of energy, which, unless it found an outlet, oppressed her and made her miserable. Now, in her then position, all channels were closed up. The management of household affairs, which, if her statement may be trusted, she neither considered beneath her dignity nor disliked, might have served as a safety-valve; but her administration came to an untimely end. When, after the first year of their married life, her husband examined the accounts, he discovered that she had spent 14,000 francs instead of 10,000, and found himself constrained to declare that their purse was too light for her liberality. Not having anything else to do, and her uselessness vexing her, she took to doctoring the poor and concocting medicines. Hers, however, was not the spirit that allows itself to be fettered by the triple vow of obedience, silence, and poverty. No wonder, therefore, that her life, which she compared to that of a nun, was not to her taste. She did not complain so much of her husband, who did not interfere with her reading and brewing of juleps, and was in no way a tyrant, as of being the slave of a given situation from which he could not set her free. The total lack of ready money was felt by her to constitute in our altogether factitious society an intolerable situation, frightful misery or absolute powerlessness. What she missed was some means of which she might dispose, without compunction and uncontrolled, for an artistic treat, a beautiful book, a week's travelling, a present to a poor friend, a charity to a deserving person, and such like trifles, which, although not indispensable, make life pleasant. "Irresponsibility is a state of servitude; it is something like the disgrace of the interdict." But servitude and disgrace are galling yokes, and it was not likely that so strong a character would long and meekly submit to them. We have, however, not yet exhausted the grievances of Madame Dudevant. Her brother Hippolyte, after mismanaging his own property, came and lived for the sake of economy at Nohant. His intemperance and that of a friend proved contagious to her husband, and the consequence was not only much rioting till late into the night, but occasionally also filthy conversations. She began, therefore, to consider how the requisite means might be obtained—which would enable her to get away from such undesirable surroundings, and to withdraw her children from these evil influences. For four years she endeavoured to discover an employment by which she could gain her livelihood. A milliner's business was out of the question without capital to begin with; by needlework no more than ten sous a day could be earned; she was too conscientious to make translation pay; her crayon and water-colour portraits were pretty good likenesses, but lacked originality; and in the painting of flowers and birds on cigar-cases, work-boxes, fans, &c., which promised to be more successful, she was soon discouraged by a change of fashion.

At last Madame Dudevant made up her mind to go to Paris and try her luck in literature. She had no ambition whatever, and merely hoped to be able to eke out in this way her slender resources. As regards the capital of knowledge she was possessed of she wrote: "I had read history and novels; I had deciphered scores; I had thrown an inattentive eye over the newspapers....Monsieur Neraud [the Malgache of the "Lettres d'un Voyageur"] had tried to teach me botany. According to the "Histoire de ma Vie" this new departure was brought about by an amicable arrangement; her letters, as in so many cases, tell, however, a very different tale. Especially important is a letter written, on December 3, 1830, to Jules Boucoiran, who had lately been tutor to her children, and whom, after the relation of what had taken place, she asks to resume these duties for her sake now that she will be away from Nohant and her children part of the year. Boucoiran, it should be noted, was a young man of about twenty, who was a total stranger to her on September 2, 1829, but whom she addressed on November 30 of that year as "Mon cher Jules." Well, she tells him in the letter in question that when looking for something in her husband's writing-desk she came on a packet addressed to her, and on which were further written by his hand the words "Do not open it till after my death." Piqued by curiosity, she did open the packet, and found in it nothing but curses upon herself. "He had gathered up in it," she says, "all his ill-humour and anger against me, all his reflections on my perversity." This was too much for her; she had allowed herself to be humiliated for eight years, now she would speak out.

Without waiting a day longer, still feeble and ill, I declared my will and mentioned my motives with an aplomb and coolness which petrified him. He hardly expected to see a being like me rise to its full height in order to face him. He growled, disputed, beseeched. I remained immovable. I want an allowance, I shall go to Paris, my children will remain at Nohant.

She feigned intractability on all these points, but after some time relented and consented to return to Nohant if her conditions were accepted. From the "Histoire de ma Vie" we learn what these conditions were. She demanded her daughter, permission to pass twice three months every year in Paris, and an allowance of 250 francs per month during the time of her absence from Nohant. Her letters, however, show that her daughter was not with her during her first three months at Paris.

Madame Dudevant proceeded to Paris at the beginning of 1831. Her establishment there was of the simplest. It consisted of three little rooms on the fifth story (a mansarde) in a house on the Quai Saint-Michel. She did the washing and ironing herself, the portiere assisting her in the rest of the household work. The meals came from a restaurant, and cost two francs a day. And thus she managed to keep within her allowance. I make these and the following statements on her own authority. As she found her woman's attire too expensive, little suited for facing mud and rain, and in other respects inconvenient, she provided herself with a coat (redingote-guerite), trousers, and waistcoat of coarse grey cloth, a hat of the same colour, a large necktie, and boots with little iron heels. This latter part of her outfit especially gave her much pleasure. Having often worn man's clothes when riding and hunting at Nohant, and remembering that her mother used to go in the same guise with her father to the theatre during their residence in Paris, she felt quite at home in these habiliments and saw nothing shocking in donning them. Now began what she called her literary school-boy life (vie d'ecolier litteraire), her vie de gamin. She trotted through the streets of Paris at all times and in all weathers, went to garrets, studios, clubs, theatres, coffee-houses, in fact, everywhere except to salons. The arts, politics, the romance of society and living humanity, were the studies which she passionately pursued. But she gives those the lie who said of her that she had the "curiosite du vice."

The literary men with whom she had constant intercourse, and with whom she was most closely connected, came, like herself, from Berry. Henri de Latouche (or Delatouche, as George Sand writes), a native of La Chatre, who was editor of the Figaro, enrolled her among the contributors to this journal. But she had no talent for this kind of work, and at the end of the month her payment amounted to perhaps from twelve to fifteen francs. Madame Dudevant and the two other Berrichons, Jules Sandeau and Felix Pyat, were, so to speak, the literary apprentices of Delatouche, who not only was much older than they, having been born in 1785, but had long ago established his reputation as a journalist, novelist, and dramatic writer. The first work which Madame Dudevant produced was the novel "Rose et Blanche"; she wrote it in collaboration with Jules Sandeau, whose relation to her is generally believed to have been not only of a literary nature. The novel, which appeared in 1831, was so successful that the publishers asked the authors to write them another. Madame Dudevant thereupon wrote "Indiana", but without the assistance of Jules Sandeau. She was going to have it published under the nom de plume Jules Sand, which they had assumed on the occasion of "Rose et Blanche." But Jules Sandeau objected to this, saying that as she had done all the work, she ought to have all the honour. To satisfy both, Jules Sandeau, who would not adorn himself with another's plumes, and the publishers, who preferred a known to an unknown name, Delatouche gave Madame Dudevant the name of George Sand, under which henceforth all her works were published, and by which she was best known in society, and generally called among her friends. "Valentine" appeared, like "Indiana," in 1832, and was followed in 1833 by Lelia. For the first two of these novels she received 3,000 francs. When Buloz bought the Revue des deux Mondes, she became one of the contributors to that journal. This shows that a great improvement had taken place in her circumstances, and that the fight she had to fight was not a very hard one. Indeed, in the course of two years she had attained fame, and was now a much-praised and much-abused celebrity.

All this time George Sand had, according to agreement, spent alternately three months in Paris and three months at Nohant. A letter written by M. Dudevant to his wife in 1831 furnishes a curious illustration of the relation that existed between husband and wife. The accommodating spirit which pervades it is most charming:—

I shall go to Paris; I shall not put up at your lodgings, for I do not wish to inconvenience you any more than I wish you to inconvenience me (parceque je ne veux pas vous gener, pas plus que je ne veux que vous me geniez).

In August, 1833, George Sand and Alfred de Musset met for the first time at a dinner which the editor Buloz gave to the contributors to the Revue des deux Mondes. The two sat beside each other. Musset called on George Sand soon after, called again and again, and before long was passionately in love with her. She reciprocated his devotion. But the serene blissfulness of the first days of their liaison was of short duration. Already in the following month they fled from the Parisian surroundings and gossipings, which they regarded as the disturbers of their harmony. After visiting Genoa, Florence, and Pisa, they settled at Venice. Italy, however, did not afford them the hoped-for peace and contentment. It was evident that the days of "adoration, ecstasy, and worship" were things of the past. Unpleasant scenes became more and more frequent. How, indeed, could a lasting concord be maintained by two such disparate characters? The woman's strength and determination contrasted with the man's weakness and vacillation; her reasoning imperturbation, prudent foresight, and love of order and activity, with his excessive irritability and sensitiveness, wanton carelessness, and unconquerable propensity to idleness and every kind of irregularity. While George Sand sat at her writing-table engaged on some work which was to bring her money and fame, Musset trifled away his time among the female singers and dancers of the noiseless city. In April, 1834, before the poet had quite recovered from the effects of a severe attack of typhoid fever, which confined him to his bed for several weeks, he left George Sand after a violent quarrel and took his departure from Venice. This, however, was not yet the end of their connection. Once more, in spite of all that had happened, they came together; but it was only for a fortnight (at Paris, in the autumn of 1834), and then they parted for ever.

It is impossible, at any rate I shall not attempt, to sift the true from the false in the various accounts which have been published of this love-drama. George Sand's version may be read in her Lettres d'un Voyageur and in Elle et Lui; Alfred de Musset's version in his brother Paul's book Lui et Elle. Neither of these versions, however, is a plain, unvarnished tale. Paul de Musset seems to keep on the whole nearer the truth, but he too cannot be altogether acquitted of the charge of exaggeration. Rather than believe that by the bedside of her lover, whom she thought unconscious and all but dead, George Sand dallied with the physician, sat on his knees, retained him to sup with her, and drank out of one glass with him, one gives credence to her statement that what Alfred de Musset imagined to be reality was but the illusion of a feverish dream. In addition to George Sand's and Paul de Musset's versions, Louise Colet has furnished a third in her Lui, a publication which bears the stamp of insincerity on almost every page, and which has been described, I think by Maxime du Camp, as worse than a lying invention—namely, as a systematic perversion of the truth. A passage from George Sand's Elle et Lui, in which Therese and Laurent, both artists, are the representatives of the novelist and poet, will indicate how she wishes the story to be read:—

Therese had no weakness for Laurent in the mocking and libertine sense that one gives to this word in love. It was by an act of her will, after nights of sorrowful meditation, that she said to him—"I wish what thou wishest, because we have come to that point where the fault to be committed is the inevitable reparation of a series of committed faults. I have been guilty towards thee in not having the egotistical prudence to shun thee; it is better that I should be guilty towards myself in remaining thy companion and consolation at the expense of my peace and of my pride."..."Listen," she added, holding his hand in both of hers with all the strength she possessed, "never draw back this hand from me, and, whatever happens, preserve so much honour and courage as not to forget that before being thy mistress I was thy FRIEND....I ask of thee only, if thou growest weary of my Jove as thou now art of my friendship, to recollect that it was not a moment of delirium that threw me into thy arms, but a sudden impulse of my heart, and a more tender and more lasting feeling than the intoxication of voluptuousness."