r. She was five years
older than he, and looked fifteen, for his slight figure and delicate,
boyish face gave him the appearance of youth unto the very last. In
letters to Madame Mariana, George Sand often refers to Chopin as "My
Little One," and when some one spoke of him as "The Chopinetto," the
name seemed to stick.

That she was the man in the partnership is very evident. He really
needed some one to look after him, provide mustard-plasters and run for
the camphor and hot-water bottle. He was the one who did the weeping and
pouting, and had the "nerves" and made the scenes; while she, on such
occasions, would viciously roll a cigarette, swear under her breath,
console and pooh-pooh.

Liszt has told us how, on one occasion, she had gone out at night for a
storm-walk, and Chopin, being too ill, or disinclined to go, remained at
home. Upon her return she found him in a conniption, he having composed
a prelude to ward off an attack of cold feet, and was now ready to
scream through fear that something had happened to her. As she entered
the door he arose, staggered and fell before her in a fainting fit.

A whole literature has grown up around the relations of Chopin and
George Sand, and the lady in the case has, herself, set forth her brief
with painstaking detail in her "Histoire de Ma Vie." With De Musset,
George Sand had to reckon on dealing with a writing man, and his
accounts of "The Little White Blackbird" had taught her caution.
Thereafter she abjured the litterateurs, excepting when in her old age
she allowed Gustave Flaubert to come within her sacred circle--but her
friendship with Flaubert was placidly platonic, as all the world knows.
And so were her relations with Chopin, provided we accept her version as
gospel fact.

George Sand lacked the frankness of Rousseau; but I think we should be
willing to accept the lady's statements, for she was present and really
the only one in possession of the facts, excepting, of course, Chopin,
and he was not a writer. He could express himself only at the keyboard,
and the piano is no graphophone, for which let us all be duly thankful.
So we are without Chopin's side of the story. We, however, have some
vigorous writing by a man by the name of Hadow.

Mr. Hadow enters the lists panoplied with facts, and declares that the
friendship was strictly platonic, being on the woman's side of a purely
maternal order. Chopin was sick and friendless, and Madame Dudevant,
knowing h