ROUEN.--CRITICISM.



THE loves of famous men and women, especially of those connected
with literature and the fine arts, have always excited much
curiosity. In the majority of cases the poet's and artist's
choice of a partner falls on a person who is incapable of
comprehending his aims and sometimes even of sympathising with
his striving. The question "why poets are so apt to choose their
mates, not for any similarity of poetical endowment, but for
qualities which might make the happiness of the rudest
handicrafts-man as well as that of the ideal craftsman" has
perhaps never been better answered than by Nathaniel Hawthorne,
who remarks that "at his highest elevation the poet needs no
human intercourse; but he finds it dreary to descend, and be a
stranger." Still, this is by no means a complete solution of the
problem which again and again presents itself and challenges our
ingenuity. Chopin and George Sand's case belongs to the small
minority of loves where both parties are distinguished
practitioners of ideal crafts. Great would be the mistake,
however, were we to assume that the elective affinities of such
lovers are easily discoverable On the contrary, we have here
another problem, one which, owing to the higher, finer, and more
varied factors that come into play, is much more difficult to
solve than the first. But before we can engage in solving the
problem, it must be properly propounded. Now, to ascertain facts
about the love-affairs of poets and artists is the very reverse
of an easy task; and this is so partly because the parties
naturally do not let outsiders into all their secrets, and partly