ose, making them pass, according
to his fancy, from the amusing to the severe, from burlesque to
solemnity--now graceful, now impassioned. We invented all kinds of
costumes, so as to play different characters in succession. No
sooner did the artist see them appear than he adapted his theme and
rhythm to the parts wonderfully. This would be repeated for two or
three evenings; after which the _maestro_, departing for Paris,
would leave us quite excited, exalted, determined not to let the
spark be lost with which he had electrified us.

Chopin was possessed of much dramatic talent himself, and was an
admirable mimic. When a boy it had been said of him that he was born to
be a great actor. His capacity for facial expressions was something
extraordinary; he often amused his friends by imitations of
fellow-musicians, reproducing their manner and gestures to the life; so
well as actually on more than one occasion to take in the spectator.

Madame Sand thus gives account of the even tenor of her way, in a letter
of September, 1845:--

I have been in Paris till June, and since then am at Nohant until
the winter, as usual; for henceforward my life is ruled as
regularly as music paper. I have written two or three novels, one
of which is just going to appear.

My son is still thin and delicate, but otherwise well. He is the
best being, the gentlest, most equable, industrious, simple-minded,
and straightforward ever seen. Our characters, like our hearts,
agree so well that we can hardly live a day apart. He is entering
his twenty-third year, Solange her eighteenth. We have our ways of
merriment, not noisy, but sustained, which bring our ages nearer
together, and when we have been working hard all the week we allow
ourselves, by way of a grand holiday, to go and eat our cake out of
doors some way off, in a wood or an old ruin, with my brother, who
is like a sturdy peasant, full of fun and good nature, and who
dines with us every day, seeing that he lives not two miles off.
Such are our grand pranks.

Sometimes these little outings would originate a novel, as with the
_Meunier d'Angibault_, which she ascribes to "a walk, a discovery, a day
of leisure, an hour of idleness." On a ramble with her children she came
upon what she calls "a nook in a wild paradise;" a mill, whose owner
had allowed everything to grow ar