time was
occupied with teaching and the pleasures of society, at Nohant he could
devote himself undisturbed and undistracted to composition. And there
is more than sufficient evidence to prove that in this respect Chopin
utilised well the quiet and leisure of his rural retirement.

Few things excite the curiosity of those who have a taste for art and
literature so much as an artist's or poet's mode of creation. With what
interest, for instance, do we read Schindler's account of how Beethoven
composed his Missa Solemnis--of the master's absolute detachment from
the terrestrial world during the time he was engaged on this work; of
his singing, shouting, and stamping, when he was in the act of giving
birth to the fugue of the Credo! But as regards musicians, we know,
generally speaking, very little on the subject; and had not George Sand
left us her reminiscences, I should not have much to tell the reader
about Chopin's mode of creation. From Gutmann I learned that his master
worked long before he put a composition to paper, but when it was once
in writing did not keep it long in his portfolio. The latter part
of this statement is contradicted by a remark of the better-informed
Fontana, who, in the preface to Chopin's posthumous works, says that the
composer, whether from caprice or nonchalance, had the habit of keeping
his manuscripts sometimes a very long time in his portfolio before
giving them to the public. As George Sand observed the composer with an
artist's eye and interest, and had, of course, better opportunities than
anybody else to observe him, her remarks are particularly valuable. She
writes:--

His creation was spontaneous and miraculous. He found it
without seeking it, without foreseeing it. It came on his
piano suddenly, complete, sublime, or it sang in his head
during a walk, and he was impatient to play it to himself. But
then began the most heart-rending labour I ever saw. It was a
series of efforts, of irresolutions, and of frettings to seize
again certain details of the theme he had heard; what he had
conceived as a whole he analysed too much when wishing to
write it, and his regret at not finding it again, in his
opinion, clearly defined, threw him into a kind of despair. He
shut himself up in his room for whole days, weeping, walking,
breaking his pens, repeating and altering a bar a hundred
times, writing and effacing it as many times, and recommencing
the next day w