83, 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 passin