ined silent, petrified with amazement. And Liszt when in the full
development of his genius, had, as we have seen, been the art-comrade of
George Sand; he had spent the whole of the summer season of 1837 at
Nohant, transcribing Beethoven's symphonies for the piano-forte whilst
she wrote her romances; she was familiar with his marvellous
improvisations. In her "Trip to Chamounix" (_Lettres d'un Voyageur_, No.
VI.) she has drawn a vivid picture of their extraordinary effect,
describing his unrehearsed organ recital in the Cathedral of Freibourg
to his little party of travelling companions. Nor was the charm of
Chopin's gift less magical. The well-known anecdotes related on this
subject are like so many glimpses into a musical paradise. Madame Sand
has given us an amusing one herself. It is evening in her _salon_ at
Paris. At the piano is Chopin; and she, her son, Eugene Delacroix, and
the Polish poet Mickiewicz sit listening whilst the composer, in an
inspired mood, is extemporizing in the sublimest manner to the little
circle. All are in silent raptures; when the servant breaks in with the
alarm--the house is on fire. They rush to the room where the flames are,
and succeed after a time in extinguishing them. Then they perceive that
the poet Mickiewicz is missing. On returning to the _salon_ they find
him as they left him, rapt, entranced, unconscious of the stir around
him, of the scare that had driven all the rest from the room. "He did
not even know we had gone and left him alone. He was listening to
Chopin, he had continued to hear him." Nor could the bewitched poet be
brought down from the clouds that evening. He remained deaf to their
banter, to Madame Sand's laughing admonition, "Next time I am with you
when the house takes fire, I must begin by putting you into a safe
place, for I see you would get burnt like a mere faggot, before you knew
what was going on."

Eugene Delacroix, one of Madame Sand's earliest and most valued friends
in the artist-world, and one of the many with whom she enjoyed along and
unclouded friendship, gives in his letters some agreeable pictures of
life at Nohant, during his visits there in the successive summers of
1845 and 1846:--

When not assembled together with the rest for dinner, breakfast, a
game of billiards, or a walk, you are in your room reading, or
lounging on your sofa. Every moment there come in through the
window open on the garden, "puffs of music" from