She is very beautiful; she is the kind of woman I like—­brown, pale, dull-complexioned with reflections as of bronze, and strikingly large-eyed like an Indian.  I have never been able to contemplate such a countenance without inward emotion.  Her physiognomy is rather torpid, but when it becomes animated it assumes a remarkably independent and proud expression.

The most complete literary portrayal of George Sand that has been handed down to us, however, is by Heine.  He represents her as Chopin knew her, for although he published the portrait as late as 1854 he did not represent her as she then looked; indeed, at that time he had probably no intercourse with her, and therefore was obliged to draw from memory.  The truthfulness of Heine’s delineation is testified by the approval of many who knew George Sand, and also by Couture’s portrait of her:—­

George Sand, the great writer, is at the same time a beautiful woman.  She is even a distinguished beauty.  Like the genius which manifests itself in her works, her face is rather to be called beautiful than interesting.  The interesting is always a graceful or ingenious deviation from the type of the beautiful, and the features of George Sand bear rather the impress of a Greek regularity.  Their form, however, is not hard, but softened by the sentimentality which is suffused over them like a veil of sorrow.  The forehead is not high, and the delicious chestnut-brown curly hair falls parted down to the shoulders.  Her eyes are somewhat dim, at least they are not bright, and their fire may have been extinguished by many tears, or may have passed into her works, which have spread their flaming brands over the whole world, illumined many a comfortless prison, but perhaps also fatally set on fire many a temple of innocence.  The authoress of “Lelia” has quiet, soft eyes, which remind one neither of Sodom nor of Gomorrah.  She has neither an emancipated aquiline nose nor a witty little snub nose.  It is just an ordinary straight nose.  A good- natured smile plays usually around her mouth, but it is not very attractive; the somewhat hanging under-lip betrays fatigued sensuality.  The chin is full and plump, but nevertheless beautifully proportioned.  Also her shoulders are beautiful, nay, magnificent.  Likewise her arms and hands, which, like her feet, are small.  Let other contemporaries describe the charms of her bosom, I confess my incompetence.  The rest of her bodily frame seems to be somewhat too stout, at least too short.  Only her head bears the impress of ideality; it reminds one of the noblest remains of Greek art, and in this respect one of our friends could compare the beautiful woman to the marble statue of the Venus of Milo, which stands in one of the lower rooms of the Louvre.  Yes, she is as beautiful as the Venus of Milo; she even surpasses the latter in many respects:  she is, for instance, very much younger.  The physiognomists who maintain that the voice of man reveals his character