GEORGE SAND

(BARONNE DUDEVANT: Born Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin)

(1804-1876)

BY TH. BENTZON (MADAME THÉRÈSE BLANC)

F GENIUS means creative faculty constantly renewed, and powerful and fertile inspiration, then George Sand certainly had more genius than any other female writer. Others are distinguished by a more chastened talent, or have soared to the heaven of art on a steadier wing, but none have surpassed her in magnificent spontaneity. One of her latest critics-speaking of her ample and copious style, which satisfied even Flaubert, yet is frequently disparaged by modern chiselers of "artistic writing». uses the expressive Latin phrase lactea ubertas; giving the idea of an abundant stream of generous milk ever gushing forth and overflowing. M. Jules Lemaître adds that this quality resembles natural kindness of heart, and is its near relative. And he is right. George Sand was above all else kind-hearted, and was most womanly in this; she was truly feminine also in her extraordinary power of assimilation, which however did not interfere with her originality, as everything she absorbed, whether ideas or knowledge, seemed to blossom in a new and personal form when she applied it.

Nothing is more interesting than to go to the source of her life to find the determining causes of her work; and to her friendships, chosen in the most varied spheres, to follow the evolutions of her thought. One can then see that she was an admirable instrument, formed by nature in one of her exceptional moods, to vibrate with extraordinary intensity under every influence approaching her. The aspirations, failures, doctrines, the good and evil, of half a century, palpitate in her noble fictions, even though we can here and there discern the errors of a mind led astray by enthusiasm. Every problem interesting to contemporary humanity attracted her broad sympathies. Long before those avowed apostles of pity, the Russian writers, she felt that "for those who are born compassionate, there will always be something to love, and consequently to pity, serve, and suffer for, on earth." She was the first who said forcibly that the most living and religious source of the progress of the human mind was in the idea of solidarity.

And this is why she will always be great, in spite of the transformation of taste, which in the name of pretended realism declares

this idealist somewhat out of fashion. It is not her fault if her instinct always led her to write poetic rather than analytic works. According to her theories of art,-and very instructive theories they are, a novel should be a mixture of both, with true situations and characters grouped around a type intended to personify the sentiment of the book. The author must not be afraid to give this sentiment all the force with which he aspires to it himself, but must on no account degrade it in the play of events. He may moreover lend it powers above the average, and charms and sufferings beyond the probabilities admitted by the greater number of minds. Above all, the author must beware of thinking that he does not need a faith of his own for writing, and that it is enough to reflect facts like a mirror. "No, this is not true: readers are attracted only to the writer with an individuality, whether this pleases or shocks them." This phrase is in a letter which George Sand wrote me, while she emphasized the following words: "The soul must not be void of faith, for talent cannot develop in a vacuum; it may flutter there for a moment, but only to expire."

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Truly this has nothing in common with the cruel impersonality so boasted of nowadays: this is not the novel as understood by M. Zola, who has never agreed with her that true reality is made up of both beauty and ugliness, and that the will to do good finds its place and use after all; nor is it the laborious effort, often driven to the point of anguish, of her friend Flaubert, who used to torture himself to find an epithet, and to whom she said, when scolding him: "Feed on the ideas and sentiments stored in your brain and your heart; form, which you think so important, will be the result of your digestion, without any help. You consider it an aim,—it is only an effect." The minutely detailed psychology of a certain school was equally foreign to her, although she has made some superb and profound studies of character: fraternal jealousy in 'Jean de la Roche,' and Prince Karl's jealousy of the past in Lucrezia Floriani,' -merely to mention one of the passions into which she delved deeply. But her aim was to interest, above all else, and who shall dare to say that she was wrong? In her eyes supreme impartiality was something anti-human; incompatible with the novel, whose prime object is to be human. She wrote for the sheer delight of giving the best of her heart and brains to many others. As for the improbabilities she is accused of trying to make people accept on principle, we must admit that very often nothing is more improbable than reality itself, especially when that reality is the life of George Sand; whence, as may be readily understood, she drew her inspiration with an artist's privilege. Every contrast can be found in it; the wildest extravagance of fancy as well as a bourgeoise simplicity.

Aurore Dupin was born the year of Napoleon's coronation, at the apogee of the glories of France; which she always loved passionately, while at the same time she had an extremely correct opinion of the faults of the Latin races, particularly that lack of practical commonsense she was so aware of in herself, and which condemns one either to be led or made use of by others. Nevertheless there was a mixture of foreign blood in her veins; and strangely enough, she had inherited her republican soul through royal descent,- twice branded, however, with the stigma of illegitimacy. She was a descendant of Augustus II., Elector of Saxony and King of Poland; for her grandmother was a natural daughter of the Maréchal de Saxe, and had married M. Dupin de Francueil. It was impossible for those who,

like me, knew her in her old age, not to compare her, on seeing her so calm, dignified, and tenderly devoted to her children, to that noble woman who had been the lady of the manor of Nohant before her, had brought her up, and bequeathed her some of her tastes, among them a love for music.

Madame Dupin had known Gluck and Piccini; she interpreted the old masters-Porpora, Hasse, Pergolese - etc., with deep feeling, in spite of her semi-paralyzed fingers and voice cracked by old age, but once so magnificent. Through her, her granddaughter received those musical impressions that abound in the delightful story of Consuelo,' where George Sand displays so complete an acquaintance with the manners and spirit of the eighteenth century. Madame Dupin de Francueil had, besides her talents and most remarkable mental qualities, all those natural virtues that can be strengthened by philosophy in the absence of religious belief.

The direction given by such a mother had already begun to bear its fruits in Maurice, the father of the future George Sand,—a brave soldier during the Revolution, who became a handsome officer of the First Empire, and died young, but had the intuitive gift of writing, as his brilliant and gushing letters prove; yet his excellent heart had inherited certain ancestral weaknesses. He became attached to a girl of low birth and no education, who had already been led into sorry adventures. And so the blood of kings and heroes mingled with that of the lower-class Parisians in the veins of the little girl, who at a later day was to transform the active qualities of her ancestors into qualities of imagination. Her maternal grandfather had been a bird-seller, who plied his trade on the quays of the Seine; and it is interesting to note the love that George Sand had all her life for feathered folk. She has spoken of them almost as eloquently as of music and children,- those divine themes which her pen never exhausted. And the fascination was reciprocal. In her garden at Nohant she used to walk surrounded by a flock of sparrows and