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SANK 



expected in such circumstances. But George 

 Sand's was a very peculiar temperament, ami it 

 is not safe to take too much for granted in 

 respect to her. During the lirst few years her 

 interests were chiefly directed towards poets and 

 artiste, the most famous being Alfred de Mussel 

 and Chopin, with the former of whom she took 

 a journey to Italy notable in the lives of both ; 

 while the second was more or less her com- 

 panion for several years, including a dismal 

 winter which they spent together at Majorca, and 

 which she has recorded in a noteworthy liook. In 

 the second decade her attention shifted to the 

 wilder sort of philosophers and politicians, such as 

 Lamennais, Pierre Leroux, and Michel (de 

 Bourges). But the advance of years and the 

 revolution of 1848 with ite consequences put an 

 unexpected end to her rather protracted Sturm-und- 

 Drang period. By a revolution not by any means 

 universal among men and almost unexampled 

 among women, she settled down as the quiet 

 ' chatelaine of Nohant ,' and spent her life for more 

 than a quarter of a century thus, occupying it 

 with wonderful literary activity, varied only by 

 foreign travel now and then, and by occasional 

 visits to Paris. She was exceedingly hospitable : 

 almost all French and many foreign men of 

 letters of eminence visited at Noliant, which 

 was an unostentatious but pleasant Liberty Hall, 

 the especial diversion being a marionette theatre. 

 No private event of any importance disturbed this 

 long and quiet period, which only closed by her 

 death with the words ' Lnissez la verdure ' on or 

 almost on her lips. 



We must now pass from this curious existence 

 a youth of dream, a womanhood of racket and 

 license, an old age of laborious calm to her work. 

 In this some have marked three, others four periods, 

 the last two of which do not seem to he separated 

 by any very real gap. The threefold division 

 corresponds almost exactly to her life experiences 

 as above sketched. When she lirst went to Paris, 

 and with her companion Jules Samlcaii, from the 

 first half of whose name her pseudonym was 

 taken, settled, partly under the guidance of Henri 

 de Latouche, to novel-writing, her luniks par- 

 took of the Romantic extravagance of the time, 

 specially informed and directed ay a polemic against 

 marriage and by the invention and glorification 

 of the femme incomprise. Indiana, 1'n/i-nfiin; 

 Ltlia (the most remarkable of all), and Jacques 

 are the chief works of this period. In the next 

 her philosophical, political, and (if they can be s 

 called ) religious teachers got the upper hand, and 

 in a fashion fathered the rhapsodies of SpiridioH, 

 Consnelo ( one of her lest Imoks, however ), and the 

 Comtfgse de Rudolsttidt. Between the two groups 

 should IHJ placed in time the fine novel of Mnti/imf. 

 Towards the middle of the century appeared the 

 extraordinary study called Lucrczia Floriani, the 

 chief characters of which are undoubtedly in 

 part drawn from herself and Chopin ; while she 

 also now l>egan to turn towards the studies ,,f 

 rustic life, of which La Petite Fadette, Francois le 

 Cliinn/ii, and La Mure au Diable are the chief, and 

 which some of her admirers regard as her greatest 

 works. Some critics (the chief of whom is M. 

 Caru) would make these rustic novels a third 

 division by themselves, and construct a fourth for 

 the miscellaneous and less spontaneous works of 

 the lost twenty years of her life. Some of those 

 last, such as Lex Beaux Messieurs de Boit Dore. Le 

 Marquis de Villemer, Mile. l<i Quintinie (a duel 

 with Fenillet), and others, are of high merit. Not 

 a tithe of her enormous list of novels can be men- 

 tioned here, while there has to be added to it a 

 considerable ThMtre, the bulky Histoiredema Vie 

 already referred to, some nondescript work, such 



as the Hiver A Majormie referred to above, and Kilt 

 rt /.HI (a sort of vindication of her relation- with 

 Mussel (q.v.), written after his death ), and a delight- 

 ful and extensive collection of letters puhli~l d 

 posthumously. One division of this last- those to 

 Flaubert is of the very first literary and personal 

 interest, and the wliole exhibits the personal 

 and literary character of the writer in such a light 

 as to have conciliated to her the affection of some 

 who liail previously been rather recalcitrant. 



The popularity of (leorgc Sand, like that of 

 most very voluminous authors, has sunk consider- 

 ably since her death. Nor have critical estimates 

 invariably agreed about her. The one thing which 

 both friends and foes accord her is the |H>s.session 

 of a most remarkable style, somewhat too fluent 

 and facile, but. never slipshod or commonplace, if 

 never exquisite or distinguished. To this gift may 

 be added the still more important one of a faculty 

 of imagination which always idealised the siiliject 

 and treatment to the point necessary to fix the work 

 as literature. A thud, though a inore disputable 

 gift, was a singular faculty of receptivity which 

 enabled her to catch and render not merely the 

 aspects of scenery anil the outline of personages, 

 but the Heeling ideas of the day on all manner of 

 subjects. She had no great or deep originality ; 

 despite her fertility, she scarcely ever (the sole 

 great exception is tlie wonderful study of insatiable 

 jealousy and outwearied love in Lurrezia t'lorinni) 

 achieved the analysis which results in synthesis and 

 fixes a character for ever. She wrote with some- 

 thing like the business-like regularity of Mr 

 Anthony Trollope in England ; ami her work cost 

 her so little that in a very few years she as regularly 

 forgot all about it, and read her own novels as if 

 they were those of others. It is scarcely paradox! 

 cal to doubt whether though her books are unceas- 

 ingly occupied with love, and a good portion of her 

 life was at least not closed to it she ever felt in 

 her own person a passionate affection. In con- 

 versation, it is said, sue was awkward and dull, and 

 there is hardly any wit or humour even in her 

 books. They are also notoriously destitute of plot 

 or composition. It seems to have been her portion 

 to produce or reproduce with a certain passivity, 

 but in never-failing yield, novels as the earth pro- 

 duces crops. AH this sounds like unfavourable 

 criticism, and so to a certain extent it is and 

 must be. It is a commonplace of criticism on 

 her to say that George SaiuVs novels are seldom 

 read a second time. Story they have as a rule not 

 much to tell, and their characters, though never 

 exactly unreal, are too slightly provided with life 

 to exercise an absorbing fascination. Yet after all 

 exceptions are made, and after allowing the utmost 

 that criticism can demand, it is difficult to speak 

 with anything but admiration of this enormous 

 work, the very bulk of which peihap.s does it 

 harm, because the same defects recurring almost 

 throughout become more obvious than they would 

 be in a smaller total. The charm not strange or 

 deep, but constant of the stvle. the vast variety 

 and volume of the creations, tin- constant faithful- 

 ness to the one law of art, 'idealise.always idealise.' 

 stand in lieu of many ornaments which are not 

 there. If George Sand hail written nothing but 

 l.ii'-rezia Floriani and the Letters to Flaubert men 

 would have gone about saying what a marvellous 

 novelist, what an acute critic of life and letters 

 hail given but glimpses of herself. As it is we 

 have a whole Sandian panorama, and we find fault 

 with it. 



The CEuvrei Complete* of George Sand, which amount 

 to about a hundred and twenty volumes in their oom- 

 pactest form, were anil are all published hy Messrs I/evy 

 of Paris. Critical and biographical writing* on her 

 (these latter rather meagre, but supplemented by the 



