have had an unlimited
admiration for a well-made and well-carried (bien porte) dress. Now what
a totally different picture presents itself when we turn to George Sand,
who says of herself, in speaking of her girlhood, that although never
boorish or importunate, she was always brusque in her movements and
natural in her manners, and had a horror of gloves and profound
bows. Her fondness for male garments is as characteristic as Chopin's
connoisseurship of the female toilette; it did not end with her student
life, for she donned them again in 1836 when travelling in Switzerland.

The whole of Chopin's person was harmonious. "His appearance," says
Moscheles, who saw him in 1839, "is exactly like his music [ist
identificirt mit seiner Musik], both are tender and schwarmerisch."

[FOOTNOTE: I shall not attempt to translate this word, but I will
give the reader a recipe. Take the notions "fanciful," "dreamy," and
"enthusiastic" (in their poetic sense), mix them well, and you have a
conception of schwarmerisck.]

A slim frame of middle height; fragile but wonderfully flexible limbs;
delicately-formed hands; very small feet; an oval, softly-outlined head;
a pale, transparent complexion; long silken hair of a light chestnut
colour, parted on one side; tender brown eyes, intelligent rather than
dreamy; a finely-curved aquiline nose; a sweet subtle smile; graceful
and varied gestures: such was the outward presence of Chopin. As to the
colour of the eyes and hair, the authorities contradict each other most
thoroughly. Liszt describes the eyes as blue, Karasowski as dark brown,
and M. Mathias as "couleur de biere." [FOOTNOTE: This strange expression
we find again in Count Wodzinski's Les trois Romans de Frederic Chopin,
where the author says: "His large limpid, expressive, and soft eyes
had that tint which the English call auburn, which the Poles, his
compatriots, describe as piwne (beer colour), and which the French would
denominate brown."] Of the hair Liszt says that it was blonde, Madame
Dubois and others that it was cendre, Miss L. Ramann that it was dark
blonde, and a Scotch lady that it was dark brown. [FOOTNOTE: Count
Wodzinski writes: "It was not blonde, but of a shade similar to that of
his eyes: ash-coloured (cendre), with golden reflections in the light."]
Happily the matter is settled for us by an authority to which all others
must yield--namely, by M. T. Kwiatkowski, the friend and countryman of
Chopin, an artist who