George Sand and Her French Style i r 



general tradition to which it belongs. It is full of color and 

 feeling, it is splendidly romantic; but when one comes to con- 

 sider it as a whole, to look toward its end and reflect upon its 

 tendency, one is struck by its ineptitude to its purpose. 



In this respect her work corresponds very closely with the 

 account she herself gives of her own intellectual condition:^ 



"Wisdom," she remarks very justly, "consists perhaps in 

 classifying one's impressions, in keeping them from encroach- 

 ing upon one another, and in isolating, if necessary, the particu- 

 lar impression one wishes to receive. In this way arise the 

 great works of genius." And of herself : "In order to put an 

 end to my lack of mental discipline I have prescribed myself a 

 regular life and a daily task — and then two-thirds of the time 

 I lose myself in dreaming or reading or writing something very 

 different from that in which I ought to be absorbed. Had it 

 not been for this intellectual dissipation I should have acquired 

 some sort of an education, for I comprehend readily enough — 

 indeed, if anything, I get to the bottom of things a little too 

 readily ; I should have forced my memory to classify its ideas. 

 To understand and to know has been my constant aspiration ; 

 but of what I have wished to realize I have realized nothing. 

 My will has never governed my thought. . . . The external 

 has always acted upon me more than I have acted upon it. I 

 have become a mirror from which my own image is obliterated, 

 so completely is it filled with a confused reflection of figures 

 and objects." 



These characteristic mental traits of hers show themselves in 

 her writing in several ways. For the careful and consistent 

 reader, one of the most painful experiences is prepared by the 

 frequency with which she falls away in the latter part of her 

 novels from the high standard of her beginnings, — and that not 

 merely in her early work, when she was learning her trade, but 

 in the work of after periods as well, when she had served a long 

 apprenticeship to her art. It is sad to notice, for instance, that 

 M. Faguet speaks of the first volume of a story like the Beaux 

 Messieurs de Bois Dori as a chef-d' ceuvre and then drops the 

 remainder of it into the oblivion of silence as though in mercy 



"^Impressions et souvenirs. 



209 



