ld suddenly, as if to take away the
impression and remembrance of his sorrow from others and from
himself, turn stealthily to a glass, arrange his hair and his
cravat, and show himself suddenly transformed into a
phlegmatic Englishman, into an impertinent old man, into a
sentimental and ridiculous Englishwoman, into a sordid Jew.
The types were always sad, however comical they might be, but
perfectly conceived and so delicately rendered that one could
not grow weary of admiring them.

All these sublime, charming, or bizarre things that he knew
how to evolve out of himself made him the soul of select
society, and there was literally a contest for his company,
his noble character, his disinterestedness, his self-respect,
his proper pride, enemy of every vanity of bad taste and of
every insolent reclame, the security of intercourse with him,
and the exquisite delicacy of his manners, making him a friend
equally serious and agreeable.

To tear Chopin away from so many gdteries, to associate him
with a simple, uniform, and constantly studious life, him who
had been brought up on the knees of princesses, was to deprive
him of that which made him live, of a factitious life, it is
true, for, like a painted woman, he laid aside in the evening,
in returning to his home, his verve and his energy, to give
the night to fever and sleeplessness; but of a life which
would have been shorter and more animated than that of the
retirement and of the intimacy restricted to the uniform
circle of a single family. In Paris he visited several salons
every day, or he chose at least every evening a different one
as a milieu. He had thus by turns twenty or thirty salons to
intoxicate or to charm with his presence.

CHAPTER XXVII.

CHOPIN IN HIS SOCIAL RELATIONS: HIS PREDILECTION FOR THE FASHIONABLE
SALON SOCIETY (ACCOUNTS BY MADAME GIRARDIN AND BERLIOZ); HIS NEGLECT OF
THE SOCIETY OF ARTISTS (ARY SCHEFFER, MARMONTEL, HELLER, SCHULHOFF, THE
PARIS CORRESPONDENT OF THE MUSICAL WORLD); APHORISMS BY LISZT ON CHOPIN
IN HIS SOCIAL ASPECT.--CHOPIN'S FRIENDSHIPS.--GEORGE SAND, LISZT, LENZ,
HELLER, MARMONTEL, AND HILLER ON HIS CHARACTER (IRRITABILITY, FITS OF
ANGER--SCENE WITH MEYERBEER--GAIETY AND RAILLERY, LOVE OF SOCIETY, AND
LITTLE TASTE FOR READING, PREDILECTION FOR THINGS POLISH).--HIS POLISH,
GERMAN, ENGLISH, AND RUSSIAN FRIENDS.--THE PARTY MADE FAMOUS BY LISZT'S
ACCOUNT.--HIS I