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