Chopin was a man who attracted women.  His delicate physique,—­he died of consumption,—­his refined, poetic temperament, and his exquisite art as a composer combined with his beautiful piano playing, so well suited to the intimate circle of the drawing-room, to make his personality a thoroughly fascinating one.  Moreover, he was, besides an artist, a gentleman, with the reserve yet charm of manner that characterizes the man of breeding.  In men women admire two extremes,—­splendid physical strength, or the delicacy that suggests a poetic soul.  Chopin was a creator of poetic music and a gentle virtuoso.  His appearance harmonized with his genius.  He was one of his own nocturnes in which you can feel a vague presentiment of untimely death.

He is described as a model son, an affectionate brother and a faithful friend.  His eyes were brown; his hair was chestnut, luxuriant and as soft as silk.  His complexion was of transparent delicacy; his voice subdued and musical.  He moved with grace.  Born near Warsaw, in 1809, he was brought up in his father’s school with the sons of aristocrats.  He had the manners of an aristocrat, and was careful in his dress.

But despite his sensitive nature, he could resent undue familiarity or rudeness, yet in a refined way all his own.  Once when he was a guest at dinner at a rich man’s house in Paris, he was asked by the host to play—­a patent violation of etiquette toward a distinguished artist.  Chopin demurred.  The host continued to press him, urging that Liszt and Thalberg had played in his house after dinner.

“But,” protested Chopin, “I have eaten so little!” and thus put an end to the matter.

Some twenty or thirty of the best salons in Paris were open to him.  Among them were those of the Polish exiles, some of whom he had known since their school-days at his father’s.  He was in the truest sense of the word a friend of those who entertained him—­in fact, one of them.  For a list of those among whom he moved socially read the dedications on his music.  They include wealthy women, like Mme. Nathaniel de Rothschild, but also a long line of princesses and countesses.  In the salon of the Potocka he was intimately at home, and it was especially there he drew his musical portraits at the piano.  Delphine, his brilliant countrywoman, vibrated with music herself.  She possessed “une belle voix de soprano,” and sang “d’apres la methode des maitres d’Italie.”

[Illustration:  Countess Potocka.  From the famous pastel in the Royal Berlin Gallery.  Artist unknown.]