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