Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician

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These letters, moreover, contain much that is damaging to her
claim to chastity. Indeed, one sentence in a letter written in
June, 1835 (Correspondance, vol. I., p. 307), disposes of this
claim decisively. The unnecessarily graphic manner in which she
here deals with an indelicate subject would be revolting in a man
addressing a woman, in a woman addressing a man it is simply
monstrous.

As a thinker, George Sand never attained to maturity; she always
remained the slave of her strong passions and vitiated
principles. She never wrote a truer word than when she confessed
that she judged everything by sympathy. Indeed, what she said of
her childhood applies also to her womanhood: "Il n'y avait de
fort en moi que la passion...rien dans man cerveau fit obstacle."
George Sand often lays her finger on sore places, fails, however,
not only to prescribe the right remedy, but even to recognise the
true cause of the disease. She makes now and then acute
observations, but has not sufficient strength to grapple
successfully with the great social, philosophical, and religious
problems which she so boldly takes up. In fact, reasoning
unreasonableness was a very frequent condition of George Sand's
mind. That the unreasonableness of her reasoning remains unseen
by many, did so at any rate in her time, is due to the marvellous
beauty and eloquence of her language. The best that can be said
of her subversive theories was said by a French critic--namely,
that they were in reality only "le temoignage d'aspirations
genereuses et de nobles illusions." But even this is saying too
much, for her aspirations and illusions are far from being always
generous and noble. If we wish to see George Sand at her best we
must seek her out in her quiet moods, when she contents herself
with being an artist, and unfolds before us the beauties of
nature and the secrets of the human heart. Indeed, unless we do
this, we cannot form a true idea of her character. Not all the
roots of her talent were imbedded in corruption. She who wrote
Lelia wrote also Andre, she who wrote Lucrezia Floriani wrote
also La petite Fadette. And in remembering her faults and
shortcomings justice demands that we should not forget her family
history, with its dissensions and examples of libertinism, and
her education without system, continuity, completeness, and
proper guidance.

The most precious judgment pronounced on George Sand is by one
who was at once a true woman and a great poet. Mrs. Elizabeth
Barrett Browning saw in her the "large-brained woman and large-
hearted man...whose soul, amid the lions of her tumultuous
senses, moans defiance and answers roar for roar, as spirits
can"; but who lacked "the angel's grace of a pure genius
sanctified from blame." This is from the sonnet to George Sand,
entitled "A Desire." In another sonnet, likewise addressed to
George Sand and entitled "A Recognition," she tells her how vain
it was to deny with a manly scorn the woman's nature...while
before

The world thou burnest in a poet-fire,
We see thy woman-heart beat evermore
Through the large flame. Beat purer, heart, and higher,
Till God unsex thee on the heavenly shore
Where unincarnate spirits purely aspire!

END OF VOLUME I.

VOLUME II.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTERS XX-XXXII
APPENDICES I-IX
REMARKS PRELIMINARY TO THE LIST OF CHOPIN'S WORKS.
LIST OF CHOPIN'S PUBLISHED WORKS

CHAPTER XX.

1836--1838.

THE LOVES OF CELEBRITIES.--VARIOUS ACCOUNTS OF CHOPIN AND GEORGE
SAND'S FIRST MEETING.--CHOPIN'S FIRST IMPRESSION OF HER.--A
COMPARISON OF THE TWO CHARACTERS.--PORTRAYALS OF CHOPIN AND
GEORGE SAND.--HER POWER OF PLEASING.--CHOPIN'S PUBLICATIONS IN
1837 AND 1838.--HE PLAYS AT COURT AND AT CONCERTS IN PARIS AND
ROUEN.--CRITICISM.

THE loves of famous men and women, especially of those connected
with literature and the fine arts, have always excited much
curiosity. In the majority of cases the poet's and artist's
choice of a partner falls on a person who is incapable of
comprehending his aims and sometimes even of sympathising with
his striving. The question "why poets are so apt to choose their
mates, not for any similarity of poetical endowment, but for
qualities which might make the happiness of the rudest
handicrafts-man as well as that of the ideal craftsman" has
perhaps never been better answered than by Nathaniel Hawthorne,
who remarks that "at his highest elevation the poet needs no
human intercourse; but he finds it dreary to descend, and be a
stranger." Still, this is by no means a complete solution of the
problem which again and again presents itself and challenges our
ingenuity. Chopin and George Sand's case belongs to the small
minority of loves where both parties are distinguished
practitioners of ideal crafts. Great would be the mistake,
however, were we to assume that the elective affinities of such
lovers are easily discoverable On the contrary, we have here
another problem, one which, owing to the higher, finer, and more
varied factors that come into play, is much more difficult to
solve than the first. But before we can engage in solving the
problem, it must be properly propounded. Now, to ascertain facts
about the love-affairs of poets and artists is the very reverse
of an easy task; and this is so partly because the parties
naturally do not let outsiders into all their secrets, and partly
because romantic minds and imaginative litterateurs are always
busy developing plain facts and unfounded rumours into wonderful
myths. The picturesqueness of the story, the piquancy of the
anecdote, is generally in inverse proportion to the narrator's
knowledge of the matter in question. In short, truth is only too
often most unconscionably sacrificed to effect. Accounts, for
instance, such as L. Enault and Karasowski have given of Chopin's
first meeting with George Sand can be recommended only to those
who care for amusing gossip about the world of art, and do not
mind whether what they read is the simple truth or not, nay, do
not mind even whether it has any verisimilitude. Nevertheless, we
will give these gentlemen a hearing, and then try if we cannot
find some firmer ground to stand on.

L. Enault relates that Chopin and George Sand met for the first
time at one of the fetes of the Marquis de C., where the
aristocracy of Europe assembled--the aristocracy of genius, of
birth, of wealth, of beauty, &c.:--

The last knots of the chaine anglaise had already been untied,
the brilliant crowd had left the ball-room, the murmur of
discreet conversation was heard in the boudoirs: the fetes of
the intimate friends began. Chopin seated himself at the
piano. He played one of those ballads whose words are written
by no poet, but whose subjects, floating in the dreamy soul of
nations, belong to the artist who likes to take them. I
believe it was the Adieux du Cavalier...Suddenly, in the
middle of the ballad, he perceived, close to the door,
immovable and pale, the beautiful face of Lelia. [FOOTNOTE:
This name of the heroine of one of her romances is often given
to George Sand. See Vol. I., p. 338.] She fixed her passionate
and sombre eyes upon him; the impressionable artist felt at
the same time pain and pleasure...others might listen to him:
he played only for her.

They met again.

From this moment fears vanished, and these two noble souls
understood each other...or believed they understood each
other.

Karasowski labours hard to surpass Enault, but is not like him a
master of the ars artem celare. The weather, he tells us, was
dull and damp, and had a depressing effect on the mind of Chopin.
No friend had visited him during the day, no book entertained
him, no musical idea gladdened him. It was nearly ten o'clock at
night (the circumstantiality of the account ought to inspire
confidence) when he bethought himself of paying a visit to the
Countess C. (the Marquis, by some means, magical or natural, has
been transformed into a Countess), this being her jour fixe, on
which an intellectual and agreeable company was always assembled
at her house.

When he ascended the carpet-covered stairs [Unfortunately we
are not informed whether the carpet was Turkey, Brussels, or
Kidderminster], it seemed to him as if he were followed by a
shadow that diffused a fragrance of violets [Ah!], and a
presentiment as if something strange and wonderful were going
to happen to him flashed through his soul. He was on the point
of turning back and going home, but, laughing at his own
superstition, he bounded lightly and cheerfully over the last
steps.

Skipping the fine description of the brilliant company assembled
in the salon, the enumeration of the topics on which the
conversation ran, and the observation that Chopin, being
disinclined to talk, seated himself in a corner and watched the
beautiful ladies as they glided hither and thither, we will join
Karasowski again where, after the departure of the greater number
of the guests, Chopin goes to the piano and begins to improvise.

His auditors, whom he, absorbed in his own thoughts and
looking only at the keys, had entirely forgotten, listened
with breathless attention. When he had concluded his
improvisation, he raised his eyes, and noticed a plainly-
dressed lady who, leaning on the instrument, seemed to wish to
read his soul with her dark fiery eyes. [Although a severe
critic might object to the attitude of a lady leaning on a
piano as socially and pictorially awkward, he must admit that
from a literary point of view it is unquestionably more
effective than sitting or standing by the door.] Chopin felt
he was blushing under the fascinating glances of the lady
[Bravo! This is a master-touch]; she smiled [Exquisite!], and
when the artist was about to withdraw from the company behind
a group of camellias, he heard the peculiar rustling of a silk
dress, which exhaled a fragrance of violets [Camellias,
rustling silks, fragrance of violets! What a profusion of
beauty and sweetness!], and the same lady who had watched him
so inquiringly at the piano approached him accompanied by
Liszt. Speaking to him with a deep, sweet voice, she made some
remarks on his playing, and more especially on the contents of
his improvisation. Frederick listened to her with pleasure and
emotion, and while words full of sparkling wit and
indescribable poetry flowed from the lady's eloquent lips
[Quite a novel representation of her powers of conversation],
he felt that he was understood as he had never been.

All this is undoubtedly very pretty, and would be invaluable in a
novel, but I am afraid we should embarrass Karasowski were we to
ask him to name his authorities.

Of this meeting at the house of the Marquis de C.--i.e., the
Marquis de Custine--I was furnished with a third version by an
eye-witness--namely, by Chopin's pupil Adolph Gutmann. From him I
learned that the occasion was neither a full-dress ball nor a
chance gathering of a jour fixe, but a musical matinee. Gutmann,
Vidal (Jean Joseph), and Franchomme opened the proceedings with a
trio by Mayseder, a composer the very existence of whose once
popular chamber-music is unknown to the present generation.
Chopin played a great deal, and George Sand devoured him with her
eyes. Afterwards the musician and the novelist walked together a
long time in the garden. Gutmann was sure that this matinee took
place either in 1836 or in 1837, and was inclined to think that
it was in the first-mentioned year.

Franchomme, whom I questioned about the matinee at the Marquis de
Custine's, had no recollection of it. Nor did he remember the
circumstance of having on this or any other occasion played a
trio of Mayseder's with Gutmann and Vidal. But this friend of the
Polish pianist--composer, while confessing his ignorance as to
the place where the latter met the great novelist for the first
time, was quite certain as to the year when he met her. Chopin,
Franchomme informed me, made George Sand's acquaintance in 1837,
their connection was broken in 1847, and he died, as everyone
knows, on October 17, 1849. In each of these dates appears the
number which Chopin regarded with a superstitious dread, which he
avoided whenever he could-for instance, he would not at any price
take lodgings in a house the number of which contained a seven--
and which may be thought by some to have really exercised a fatal
influence over him. It is hardly necessary to point out that it
was this fatal number which fixed the date in Franchomme's
memory.

But supposing Chopin and George Sand to have really met at the
Marquis de Custine's, was this their first meeting?

[FOONOTE: That they were on one occasion both present at a party
given by the Marquis de Custine may be gathered from Freiherr von
Flotow's Reminiscences of his life in Paris (published in the
"Deutsche Revue" of January, 1883, p. 65); but not that this was
their first meeting, nor the time when it took place. As to the
character of this dish of reminiscences, I may say that it is
sauced and seasoned for the consumption of the blase magazine
reader, and has no nutritive substance whatever.]

I put the question to Liszt in the course of a conversation I had
with him some years ago in Weimar. His answer was most positive,
and to the effect that the first meeting took place at Chopin's
own apartments. "I ought to know best," he added, "seeing that I
was instrumental in bringing the two together." Indeed, it would
be difficult to find a more trustworthy witness in this matter
than Liszt, who at that time not only was one of the chief
comrades of Chopin, but also of George Sand. According to him,
then, the meeting came about in this way. George Sand, whose
curiosity had been excited both by the Polish musician's
compositions and by the accounts she had heard of him, expressed
to Liszt the wish to make the acquaintance of his friend. Liszt
thereupon spoke about her to Chopin, but the latter was averse to
having any intercourse with her. He said he did not like literary
women, and was not made for their society; it was different with
his friend, who there found himself in his element. George Sand,
however, did not cease to remind Liszt of his promise to
introduce her to Chopin. One morning in the early part of 1837
Liszt called on his friend and brother-artist, and found him in
high spirits on account of some compositions he had lately
finished. As Chopin was anxious to play them to his friends, it
was arranged to have in the evening a little party at his rooms.

This seemed to Liszt an excellent opportunity to redeem the
promise which he had given George Sand when she asked for an
introduction; and, without telling Chopin what he was going to
do, he brought her with him along with the Comtesse d'Agoult. The
success of the soiree was such that it was soon followed by a
second and many more.

In the foregoing accounts the reader will find contradictions
enough to exercise his ingenuity upon. But the involuntary tricks
of memory and the voluntary ones of imagination make always such
terrible havoc of facts that truth, be it ever so much sought and
cared for, appears in history and biography only in a more or
less disfigured condition. George Sand's own allusion to the
commencement of the acquaintance agrees best with Liszt's
account. After passing in the latter part of 1836 some months in
Switzerland with Liszt and the Comtesse d'Agoult, she meets them
again at Paris in the December of the same year:--

At the Hotel de France, where Madame d'Agoult had persuaded me
to take quarters near her, the conditions of existence were
charming for a few days. She received many litterateurs,
artists, and some clever men of fashion. It was at Madame
d'Agoult's, or through her, that I made the acquaintance of
Eugene Sue, Baron d'Eckstein, Chopin, Mickiewicz, Nourrit,
Victor Schoelcher, &c. My friends became also hers. Through me
she got acquainted with M. Lamennais, Pierre-Leroux, Henri
Heine, &c. Her salon, improvised in an inn, was therefore a
reunion d'elite over which she presided with exquisite grace,
and where she found herself the equal of all the eminent
specialists by reason of the extent of her mind and the
variety of her faculties, which were at once poetic and
serious. Admirable music was performed there, and in the
intervals one could instruct one's self by listening to the
conversation.

To reconcile Liszt's account with George Sand's remark that
Chopin was one of those whose acquaintance she made at Madame
d'Agoult's or through her, we have only to remember the intimate
relation in which Liszt stood to this lady (subsequently known in
literature under the nom de plume of Daniel Stern), who had left
her husband, the Comte d'Agoult, in 1835.

And now at last we can step again from the treacherous quicksand
of reminiscences on the terra firma of documents. The following
extracts from some letters of George Sand's throw light on her
relation to Chopin in the early part of 1837:--

Nohant, March 28, 1837.

[To Franz Liszt.]...Come and see us as soon as possible. Love,
esteem, and friendship claim you at Nohant. Love (Marie
[FOOTNOTE: The Comtesse d'Agoult.]) is some what ailing,
esteem (Maurice and Pelletan [FOOTNOTE: The former, George
Sand's son; the latter, Eugene Pelletan, Maurice's tutor.])
pretty well, and friendship (myself) obese and in excellent
health.

Marie told me that there was some hope of Chopin. Tell Chopin
that I beg of him to accompany you; that Marie cannot live
without him, and that I adore him.

I shall write to Grzymala personally in order to induce him
also, if I can, to come and see us. I should like to be able
to surround Marie with all her friends, in order that she also
may live in the bosom of love, esteem, and friendship.

[FOOTNOTE: Albert Grzymala, a man of note among the Polish
refugees. He was a native of Dunajowce in Podolia, had held
various military and other posts--those of maitre des requites,
director of the Bank of Poland, attache to the staff of Prince
Poniatowski, General Sebastiani, and Lefebvre, &c.--and was in
1830 sent by the Polish Government on a diplomatic mission to
Berlin, Paris, and London. (See L'Amanach de L'Emigration
polonaise, published at Paris some forty years ago.) He must not
be confounded with the publicist Francis Grzymala, who at Warsaw
was considered one of the marechaux de plume, and at Paris was
connected with the Polish publication Sybilla. With one exception
(Vol. I., p. 3), the Grzymala spoken of in these volumes is
Albert Grzymala, sometimes also called Count Grzymala. This
title, however, was, if I am rightly informed, only a courtesy
title. The Polish nobility as such was untitled, titles being of
foreign origin and not legally recognised. But many Polish
noblemen when abroad assume the prefix de or von, or the title
"Count," in order to make known their rank.]

Nohant, April 5, 1837.

[To the Comtesse d'Agoult.]...Tell Mick....[FOOTNOTE:
Mickiewicz, the poet.] (non-compromising manner of writing
Polish names) that my pen and my house are at his service, and
are only too happy to be so; tell Grzy. ..., [FOOTNOTE:
Gryzmala] whom I adore, Chopin, whom I idolatrise, and all
those whom you love that I love them, and that, brought by
you, they will be welcome. Berry in a body watches for the
maestro's [FOOTNOTE: Liszt's] return in order to hear him play
the piano. I believe we shall be obliged to place le garde-
champetre and la garde nationals of Nohant under arms in order
to defend ourselves against the dilettanti berrichoni.

Nohant, April 10, 1837.

[To the Comtesse d'Agoult.] I want the fellows, [FOOTNOTE:
"Fellows" (English) was the nickname which Liszt gave to
himself and his pupil Hermann Cohen.] I want them as soon and
as LONG as possible. I want them a mort. I want also Chopin
and all the Mickiewiczs and Grzymalas in the world. I want
even Sue if you want him. What more would I not want if that
were your fancy? For instance, M. de Suzannet or Victor
Schoelcher! Everything, a lover excepted.

Nohant, April 21, 1837.

[To the Comtesse d'Agoult.] Nobody has permitted himself to
breathe the air of your room since you left it. Arrangements
will be made to put up all those you may bring with you. I
count on the maestro, on Chopin, on the Rat, [FOOTNOTE:
Liszt's pupil, Hermann Cohen.] if he does not weary you too
much, and all the others at your choice.

Chopin's love for George Sand was not instantaneous like that of
Romeo for Juliet. Karasowski remembers having read in one of
those letters of the composer which perished in 1863: "Yesterday
I met George Sand...; she made a very disagreeable impression
upon me." Hiller in his Open Letter to Franz Liszt writes:--

One evening you had assembled in your apartments the
aristocracy of the French literary world--George Sand was of
course one of the company. On the way home Chopin said to me
"What a repellent [antipathische] woman the Sand is! But is
she really a woman? I am inclined to doubt it."

Liszt, in discussing this matter with me, spoke only of Chopin's
"reserve" towards George Sand, but said nothing of his "aversion"
to her. And according to this authority the novelist's
extraordinary mind and attractive conversation soon overcame the
musician's reserve. Alfred de Musset's experience had been of a
similar nature. George Sand did not particularly please him at
first, but a few visits which he paid her sufficed to inflame his
heart with a violent passion. The liaisons of the poet and
musician with the novelist offer other points of resemblance
besides the one just mentioned: both Musset and Chopin were
younger than George Sand--the one six, the other five years; and
both, notwithstanding the dissimilarity of their characters,
occupied the position of a weaker half. In the case of Chopin I
am reminded of a saying of Sydney Smith, who, in speaking of his
friends the historian Grote and his wife, remarked: "I do like
them both so much, for he is so lady-like, and she is such a
perfect gentleman." Indeed, Chopin was described to me by his
pupil Gutmann as feminine in looks, gestures, and taste; as to
George Sand, although many may be unwilling to admit her perfect
gentlemanliness, no one can doubt her manliness:--

Dark and olive-complexioned Lelia! [writes Liszt] thou hast
walked in solitary places, sombre as Lara, distracted as
Manfred, rebellious as Cain, but more fierce [farouche], more
pitiless, more inconsolable than they, because thou hast found
among the hearts of men none feminine enough to love thee as
they have been loved, to pay to thy virile charms the tribute
of a confiding and blind submission, of a silent and ardent
devotion, to suffer his allegiance to be protected by thy
Amazonian strength!

The enthusiasm with which the Poles of her acquaintance spoke of
their countrywomen, and the amorous suavity, fulness of feeling,
and spotless nobleness which she admired in the Polish composer's
inspirations, seem to have made her anticipate, even before
meeting Chopin, that she would find in him her ideal lover, one
whose love takes the form of worship. To quote Liszt's words:
"She believed that there, free from all dependence, secure
against all inferiority, her role would rise to the fairy-like
power of some being at once the superior and the friend of man.
"Were it not unreasonable to regard spontaneous utterances--
expressions of passing moods and fancies, perhaps mere flights of
rhetoric--as well-considered expositions of stable principles,
one might be tempted to ask: Had George Sand found in Chopin the
man who was "bold or vile enough" to accept her "hard and clear"
conditions? [FOOTNOTE: See extract from one of her letters in the
preceding chapter, Vol. I., p. 334.]

While the ordinary position of man and woman was entirely
reversed in this alliance, the qualities which characterised them
can nevertheless hardly ever have been more nearly diametrically
opposed. Chopin was weak and undecided; George Sand strong and
energetic. The former shrank from inquiry and controversy; the
latter threw herself eagerly into them. [FOOTNOTE: George Sand
talks much of the indolence of her temperament: we may admit this
fact, but must not overlook another one--namely, that she was in
possession of an immense fund of energy, and was always ready to
draw upon it whenever speech or action served her purpose or
fancy.] The one was a strict observer of the laws of propriety
and an almost exclusive frequenter of fashionable society; the
other, on the contrary, had an unmitigated scorn for the so-
called proprieties and so-called good society. Chopin's manners
exhibited a studied refinement, and no woman could be more
particular in the matter of dress than he was. It is
characteristic of the man that he was so discerning a judge of
the elegance and perfection of a female toilette as to be able to
tell at a glance whether a dress had been made in a first-class
establishment or in an inferior one. The great composer is said
to have had an unlimited admiration for a well-made and well-
carried (bien porte) dress. Now what a totally different picture
presents itself when we turn to George Sand, who says of herself,
in speaking of her girlhood, that although never boorish or
importunate, she was always brusque in her movements and natural
in her manners, and had a horror of gloves and profound bows. Her
fondness for male garments is as characteristic as Chopin's
connoisseurship of the female toilette; it did not end with her
student life, for she donned them again in 1836 when travelling
in Switzerland.