when Chopin received the young woman and her
husband after a terrible scene at Nohant, she broke with him. It was a
good excuse. He had ennuied her for several years, and as he had
completed his artistic work on this planet and there was nothing more
to be studied,--the psychological portrait was supposedly
painted--Madame George got rid of him. The dark stories of maternal
jealousy, of Chopin's preference for Solange, the visit to Chopin of
the concierge's wife to complain of her mistress' behavior with her
husband, all these rakings I leave to others. It was a triste affair
and I do not doubt in the least that it undermined Chopin's feeble
health. Why not! Animals die of broken hearts, and this emotional
product of Poland, deprived of affection, home and careful attention,
may well, as De Lenz swears, have died of heart-break. Recent gossip
declares that Sand was jealous of Chopin's friendships--this is silly.

Mr. A. B. Walkley, the English dramatic critic, after declaring that he
would rather have lived during the Balzac epoch in Paris, continues in
this entertaining vein:

And then one might have had a chance of seeing George Sand in
the thick of her amorisms. For my part I would certainly
rather have met her than Pontius Pilate. The people who saw
her in her old age--Flaubert, Gautier, the Goncourts--have
left us copious records of her odd appearance, her perpetual
cigarette smoking, and her whimsical life at Nohant. But then
she was only an "extinct volcano;" she must have been much
more interesting in full eruption. Of her earlier career--the
period of Musset and Pagello--she herself told us something in
"Elle et Lui," and correspondence published a year or so ago
in the "Revue de Paris" told us more. But, to my mind, the
most fascinating chapter in this part of her history is the
Chopin chapter, covering the next decade, or, roughly
speaking, the 'forties. She has revealed something of this
time--naturally from her own point of view--in "Lucrezia
Floriana" (1847). For it is, of course, one of the most
notorious characteristics of George Sand that she invariably
turned her loves into "copy." The mixture of passion and
printer's ink in this lady's composition is surely one of the
most curious blends ever offered to the palate of the epicure.

But it was a blend which gave the lady an unfair advantage for
posterity. We hear too much of her side of the matter. This