Part 4

The impending war [1853] rendered desirable an article on England’s Foreign Policy, for the _Westminster Review_, and I agreed to do it. I went to the editor’s house for the purpose.... On taking possession of my room there, and finding a capital desk on my table, with a singularly convenient slope, and of an admirable height for writing without fatigue, it struck me that during my whole course of literary labor, of nearly five-and-thirty years, it had never once occurred to me to provide myself with a proper, business-like desk. I had always written on blotting-paper, on a flat table, except when in a lazy mood, in winter, I had written as short-sighted people do (as Mrs. Somerville and “Currer Bell” always did), on a board, or something stiff, held in the left hand. I wrote a good deal of the ‘Political Economy’ in that way, and with steel pens, ... but it was radically uncomfortable; and I have ever since written on a table, and with quill pens. Now I was to begin on a new and luxurious method--just, as it happened, at the close of my life’s work. Mr. Chapman obtained for me a first-rate Chancery-lane desk, with all manner of conveniences, and of a proper sanitary form; and, moreover, some French paper of various sizes, which has spoiled me for all other paper; ink to correspond; and a pen-maker, of French workmanship, suitable to eyes which were now feeling the effects of years and over-work.

HARRIET MARTINEAU: ‘Autobiography.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Appearance of MS.]

I have seen the original manuscript of one of the ‘Political Economy Tales.’ The writing has evidently been done as rapidly as the hand could move; every word that will admit of it is contracted, to save time. “Socy.,” “opporty.,” “agst.,” “abt.,” “independce.,” these were amongst the abbreviations submitted to the printer’s intelligence; not to mention commoner and more simple words, such as “wh.,” “wd.,” and the like. The calligraphy, though very readable, has a somewhat slipshod look. Thus, there is every token of extremely rapid composition. Yet the corrections on the MS. are few and trifling; the structure of a sentence is never altered, and there are but seldom emendations of even principal words. The manuscript is written (in defiance of law and order), on both sides of the paper.

MRS. FENWICK MILLER: ‘Harriet Martineau.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Fluctuations of mind about work.]

The fluctuations of mind which I underwent about every number of my work, were as regular as the tides. I was fired with the first conception, and believed that I had found a treasure. Then, while at work, I alternately admired and despised what I wrote. When finished, I was in absolute despair; and then, when I saw it in print, I was surprised to see how well it looked.

HARRIET MARTINEAU: ‘Autobiography.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: George Eliot on ‘The Crofton Boys.’]

What an exquisite little thing that is of Harriet Martineau’s--‘The Crofton Boys!’ I have had some delightful crying over it. There are two or three lines in it that would feed one’s soul for a month. Hugh’s mother says to him, speaking of people who have permanent sorrow, “They soon had a new and delicious pleasure, which none but the bitterly disappointed can feel--the pleasure of rousing their souls to bear pain, and of _agreeing with God silently_, when nobody knows what is in their hearts.”

MARIAN EVANS: _Letter to Mrs. Bray_, 1845. ‘George Eliot’s Life,’ edited by J. W. Cross.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Carlyle on ‘Deerbrook’.]

How do you like it [Deerbrook]? people ask. To which there are serious answers returnable, but few so good as none.

THOMAS CARLYLE: _Letter to Emerson_, 17th April, 1839.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: On ‘The Hour and the Man.’]

The good Harriet is not well; but keeps a very courageous heart. She lives by the shore of the beautiful blue Northumbrian Sea; “a many-sounding” solitude which I often envy her. She writes unweariedly.... You saw her _Toussaint l’Ouvertour_; how she has made such a beautiful “black Washington” ... of a rough-handed, hard-hearted, semi-articulate, gabbling Negro; and of the horriblest phasis that ‘Sansculottism’ _can_ exhibit, of a Black Sansculottism, a musical Opera or Oratorio in pink stockings! It is very beautiful. Beautiful as a child’s heart,--and in so shrewd a head as that. She is now writing express Children’s Tales, which I calculate I shall find more perfect.

THOMAS CARLYLE: _Letter to Emerson_, 21st February, 1841. ‘Correspondence of T. Carlyle and R. W. Emerson.’

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Haworth Churchyard_, by Matthew Arnold.

[2] The portrait alluded to is probably the caricature by D. Maclise, representing Miss Martineau seated, with a cat perched upon her shoulder, before a cooking-stove.

AURORE DUPIN (DUDEVANT).

(GEORGE SAND.)

1804-1876.

AURORE DUPIN (DUDEVANT).

(GEORGE SAND.)

Aurore Dupin was born in Paris, July 5, 1804. Her father, Maurice Dupin de Franceuil, was the son of an illegitimate daughter of Marshal Saxe. His wife, Sophie Delaborde, was “a child of the people.” The death of Captain Dupin, in 1808, left little Aurore “a bone of contention” between her plebeian mother and her patrician grandmother. Most of her youth was passed with the latter, at Nohant, in Berri. Her education was irregularly carried on under an old tutor named Deschatres. At thirteen, she was sent to the Convent des Anglaises, at Paris. Here a strong religious enthusiasm took possession of her; and she desired to become a nun. But, her grandmother having removed her from the convent, her lonely study of the works of philosophers and metaphysicians wrought a change, and she “became a Protestant without knowing it.” In 1821 the grandmother died. Aurore lived unhappily with her mother, a woman of violent temper (to whom she was nevertheless deeply attached), and this fact may have influenced her in accepting the hand of M. Casimir Dudevant, to whom she was married in 1822. The disparity in age was not great, M. Dudevant being twenty-seven; but the marriage proved a most uncongenial one. In 1823, Aurore’s beloved son, Maurice, was born; in 1828, her daughter, Solange. In 1831 she made an arrangement with her husband by which she was free to spend every alternate three months, in Paris, working with her pen. He allowed her 3,000 francs a year. The education of the children was carefully provided for in their compact. And now Aurore’s career really began. In 1832 she published, under the pseudonym, “George Sand,” her first novel, _Indiana_. This created a sensation and established her fame. It was followed during her long life by _Valentine_, 1832,[3] _Lélia_, 1833, _Jacques_, 1834, _Le Secrétaire intime_, 1834, _André_, 1835, _Leone Leoni_, 1835, _Simon_, 1836, _Mauprat_, 1837, _La Dernière Aldini_, 1837, _Les Maîtres Mosaïstes_, 1837, _Spiridion_, 1840, _Le Compagnon du Tour de France_, 1840, _Horace_, 1842, _Consuelo_, 1842-1843, _La Comtesse de Rudolstadt_, 1843-4, _Jeanne_, 1844, _Le Meunier d’ Angibault_, 1845, _La Mare au Diable_, 1846, _La Péché d’ M. Antoine_, 1847, _Lucrezia Floriani_, 1847, _La Petite Fadette_, 1849, _François le Champi_, 1850, _Le Château des Désertes_, 1851, _Les Maîtres Sonneurs_, 1853, _Les Beaux Messieurs de Bois Doré_, 1858, _Elle et Lui_, 1859, _L’ Homme de Neige_, 1859, _Constance Verrier_, 1860, _Jean de la Roche_, 1860, _Le Marquis de Villemer_, 1861, _Valvèdre_, 1861, _La Ville Noire_, 1861, _Mlle. La Quintinie_, 1863, _La Confession d’ une Jeune Fille_, 1865, _Cadio_, 1868, _Malgré tout_, 1870, _Pierre qui roule_, 1870, _Nanon_, 1872, _Contes d’ une Grand’ mère_, 1873, and numerous other novels and tales; _Cosima_, 1840, _Claudie_, 1851, _Le Mariage de Victorine_, 1851, _Le Pressoir_, 1853, _Maître Favilla_, 1855, and other plays; _Letters d’ un Voyageur_ (written 1834-6), _Un Hiver à Majorque_, 1842, _Histoire de ma Vie_, 1854-5, _Journal d’ un Voyageur pendant le Siège_, 1872, _Impressions et Souvenirs_, 1873, and other records of experience.

In 1836, M. and Mme. Dudevant finally separated, and the latter was known henceforward as Mme. Sand. She had from this time full control of her children, to whom she was devoted. Her intimacy with Alfred de Musset, broken off after their journey to Italy, in 1834, is well known and variously commented upon. Chopin was also her ardent admirer.

She took to the end a deep interest in public affairs. The last years of her life were passed quietly at Nohant, where she died, June 8, 1876.

The brief remarks on George Sand, by Charlotte Brontë and Mrs. Browning, have interest, as the words of sister authors who (as well as George Eliot), are sometimes classed with her.

“The immense vibration of George Sand’s voice upon the ear of Europe,” says Mr. Arnold, “will not soon die away. Her passions and her errors have been abundantly talked of. She left them behind her, and men’s memory of her will leave them behind also. There will remain of her to mankind the sense of benefit and stimulus from the passage upon earth of that large and frank nature, of that large and pure utterance.... There will remain an admiring and ever-widening report of that great and ingenuous soul, simple, affectionate, without vanity, without pedantry, human, equitable, patient, kind.”

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Reminiscences of her childhood.]

While I was yet very young, my mother commenced the cultivation of my intellectual faculties; my mind was neither particularly sluggish nor

## particularly active; left to itself it might have developed but slowly.

I was rather backward in talking, but having once begun to speak I learned words very rapidly, and, when but four years old, I could read fluently. I was brought up with my cousin Clotilde. Our respective mothers taught us our prayers, and I recollect that I used to repeat mine by heart without a mistake, and also without having any idea of their meaning, except as regards the following words, which we were made to repeat when our little heads were laid upon the same pillow: “_Mon Dieu, je vous donne mon cœur!_” (My God, I give my heart to Thee!) I do not know why I understood those words better than the rest, for they are highly metaphysical; but certainly I did understand them, and it was the only part of my prayers that conveyed to me any idea either of God or myself....

My mother used to sing to me a rhyme on Christmas Eve; but as that only occurred once a year, I do not recollect it. What I have not forgotten is the absolute belief which I had in the descent down the chimney of Old Father Christmas, a good old man with a snowy beard, who, during the night, as the clock struck twelve, was to come and place in my little shoe a present which I should find upon awaking. Twelve o’clock at night! that mysterious hour unknown to children, and which is represented to them as the impossible limit to which they can keep awake! What incredible efforts did I not make to resist my tendency to sleep before the appearance of the little old man! I felt anxious yet afraid to see him! But I could never keep awake long enough, and the following morning my first anxiety was to go and examine my shoe in the fire-place. What emotion did I not feel at sight of the white paper parcel! for Father Christmas was extremely clean in his ways, and never failed to carefully wrap up his offering. I used to jump out of bed and run barefooted to seize my treasure. It was never a very magnificent affair, for we were not wealthy! It used to be a little cake, an orange, or simply a nice rosy apple. But, nevertheless, it seemed so precious to me that I scarcely dared to eat it.

GEORGE SAND: ‘_Histoire de ma Vie_,’ quoted by Raphaël Ledos de Beaufort, in ‘Letters of George Sand.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Early education.]

[Sidenote: Imaginativeness.]

[Sidenote: Activity.]

There seems to have been little or no method about her early education. The study of her own language was neglected, and the time spent less profitably, she considered, in acquiring a smattering of Latin. She took to some studies with avidity, while others remained wholly distasteful to her. For mere head-work she cared little. Arithmetic she detested; versification no less. The dry _technique_ in music was a stumbling block of which she was impatient. History and literature she enjoyed in whatever they offered that was romantic, heroic, or poetically suggestive. In her Nohant surroundings there was nothing to check, and much to stimulate, this dominant imaginative faculty.... Such a visionary life might have been most dangerous and mentally enervating had her organization been less robust, and the tendency to reverie not been matched by lively external perception and plentiful physical activity. As it was, if at one moment she was in a cloud-land of her own, or poring over the stories of the Iliad, the classic mythologies, or Tasso’s _Gerusalemme_, the next would see her scouring the fields, ... playing practical jokes on the tutor, and extemporizing wild out-of-door games and dances with her village companions.

[Sidenote: A curious development.]

Of serious religious education she received none at all.... Her mother was pious in a primitive way, though holding aloof from priestly influences. The grandmother [was] a disciple of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and of Voltaire.... On both sides what was offered her to worship was too indefinite to satisfy her strong religious instincts.... She filled in the blank with her imagination, which was forthwith called upon to picture a being who should represent all perfections, human and divine; something that her heart could love, as well as her intelligence approve.

[Sidenote: “Corambé.”]

This ideal figure, for whom she devised the name Corambé, was to combine all the spiritual qualities of the Christian ideal with the earthly grace and beauty of the mythological deities of Greece. It is hardly too much to say that the Christianity which had been expressly left out in her teaching she invented for herself. She erected a woodland altar in the recesses of a thicket to this imaginary object of her adoration, and it is a characteristic trait that the sacrifices she chose to offer there were the release of birds and butterflies that had been taken prisoners--as a symbolical oblation most welcome to a divinity whose essential attributes were infinite mercy and love.

BERTHA THOMAS: ‘George Sand.’ (Famous Women Series.) Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1883.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Unhappy married life.]

Her husband seems to have gradually neglected her, to satisfy his tastes as a sportsman. An excellent shot, a daring horseman, an indefatigable huntsman, he often left her at two and three in the morning to indulge in his favorite sport--hunting.

The young wife, delicate in health and ardent in her affection, deeply resented the frequent absence of her husband. She at first meekly remonstrated with M. Dudevant, who would then stay at home for a few days, soon again to disappear. Months and years thus elapsed. When not out hunting, M. Dudevant indulged in feasting with his friends, eating enormously and drinking more, ... and almost forsaking his wife for the pleasures of the field and the table.

RAPHAËL LEDOS DE BEAUFORT: _Biographical Sketch_, in ‘Letters of George Sand.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The crisis.]

I must inform you that in spite of my inertia, indifference, unsteadiness of purpose, the facility with which I forgive and forget sorrows and injury, I have just taken a _rash and extreme resolution_.... You are acquainted with my home life, you are able to judge whether it is tolerable. You, scores of times, wondered how I could display so much courage and equanimity when my pride was being constantly crushed. But there is a limit to everything.... There has been no scandal. While looking for something in my husband’s desk, I simply found a parcel addressed to me. That parcel had a kind of solemn appearance which struck me. It bore the inscription: _To be opened only at my death._

I could not find the patience to wait until I became a widow. With health like mine I cannot expect to survive anyone. At any rate, I supposed my husband dead, and felt rather anxious to know what he might think of me while still alive. The parcel being directed to me, I had a right to open it without being thought indiscreet, and, as my husband is in the full enjoyment of health, I could read his will without emotion.

Good heavens! what a will! Curses for me and nothing else! He had collected therein all his impulses of temper and ill-humor against me, all his reflections respecting my _perverseness_, all his feelings of contempt for my character. And that is what he had left me as a token of his affection! I fancied that I was dreaming, I who, until now, was obstinately shutting my eyes and refusing to see that I was scorned. The perusal of that will has at last aroused me from my slumber. I said to myself that to live with a man who feels neither esteem for nor confidence in his wife, would be equivalent to trying to revive a corpse. My mind was made up, and, I dare say so, _irrevocably_.

AURORE DUDEVANT: _Letter to M. Jules Boucoiran_, December, 1830. ‘Letters of George Sand,’ translated by Raphaël Ledos de Beaufort. London: Ward & Downey, 1886.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her life in Paris.]

The beginning of her life in Paris was one of considerable poverty and privation. She lived _au cinquième_ in a lodging which cost her a yearly rent of £12; she had no servant, and got in her food from an eating-house close by for the sum of two francs a day. Her washing and needlework she did herself. Notwithstanding this rigid economy, it was impossible to keep within the limits of her husband’s allowance of £120 a year, especially as far as her dress was concerned. After some hesitation, therefore, she took the resolution, which caused so much scandal then and afterwards, of adopting male attire.

[Sidenote: Adoption of male attire.]

“My thin boots wore out in a few days,” she tells us in the autobiography. “I forgot to hold up my dress, and covered my petticoats with mud. My bonnets were spoilt one after another by the rain. I generally returned from the expeditions I took, dirty, weary, and cold. Whereas my young men acquaintances--some of whom had been the companions of my childhood in Berri--had none of these inconveniences to submit to. I therefore had a long gray cloth coat made, with a waistcoat and trousers to match. When the costume was completed by a gray felt hat and a loose woollen cravat, no one could have guessed that I was not a young student in my first year. My boots were my

## particular delight. I should like to have gone to bed with them. On

their little iron heels I wandered from one end of Paris to the other; no one took any notice of me, or suspected my disguise.”

---- ----: ‘George Sand.’ _Temple Bar_, April, 1885.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Literature at first a resource.]

My husband has set down my private expenses at 3,000 francs. You know that that is little for me, who like to give and cannot bear to receive. I therefore only purpose increasing my income from some other source. I have no ambition to be known, and shall not be. I shall not attract either the envy or the hatred of any one. Most writers, I know, lead lives of anguish and struggle; but those whose sole ambition is to earn a livelihood live in peaceable obscurity. It would ... be very odd if a paltry talent like mine could not withhold itself from the public gaze.

AURORE DUDEVANT: _Letter to M. Jules Boucoiran_, February, 1831, in ‘Letters of George Sand.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: But soon a passion.]

I am more than ever intent upon following a literary career. In spite of the repugnance which I sometimes experience, despite the days of idleness and fatigue which cause me to break off my work, in spite of the life, more than quiet, which I lead here, I feel that henceforth my existence has an aim. I have a purpose in view, a task before me, and, if I may use the word, a _passion_. For the profession of writing is nothing else but a violent, indestructible passion. When it has once entered people’s heads it never leaves them.

AURORE DUDEVANT: _Letter to M. Jules Boucoiran_, March, 1831, in ‘Letters of George Sand.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Bohemian experiences.]

[Sidenote: Balzac’s oddities.]

On the Quai St. Michel--a portion of the Seine embankment facing the towers of Notre Dame, the Sainte Chapelle, and other picturesque monuments of ancient Paris--she had now definitely installed herself in modest lodgings on the fifth story. Accepted and treated as a comrade by a little knot of fellow _literati_ and colleagues on the _Figaro_, two of whom--Jules Sandeau and Félix Pyat--were from Berri, like herself; and with Delatouche, also a Berrichon, for their head-master, she served thus singularly her brief apprenticeship to literature and experience, sharing with the rest both their studies and their relaxations, dining with them at cheap restaurants, frequenting clubs, studios, and theatres of every degree; the youthful effervescence of her student-friends venting itself in such collegians’ pranks as parading deserted quarters of the town by moonlight, in the small hours, chanting lugubrious strains to astonish the shop-keepers. The only great celebrity whose acquaintance she had made was Balzac, himself the prince of eccentrics. Although he did not encourage Madame Dudevant’s literary ambition, he showed himself kindly disposed towards her and her young friends, and she gives some amusing instances that came under her notice of his oddities. Thus once, after a little Bohemian dinner at his lodgings in the Rue Cassini, he insisted on putting on a new and magnificent dressing-gown, of which he was exceedingly vain, to display to his guests, of whom Madame Dudevant was one; and not satisfied therewith, must needs go forth, thus accoutred, to light them on their walk home. All the way he continued to hold forth to them about four Arab horses, which he had not got yet, but meant to get soon, and of which, though he never got them at all, he firmly believed himself to have been possessed for some time.

BERTHA THOMAS: ‘George Sand.’ (Famous Women Series.) Boston: Roberts Bros., 1883.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: “An artist’s life.”]

I must live. For that purpose I am doing the meanest of work. I write articles for the _Figaro_. If you only knew what it is! But they pay seven francs for a column; besides which it enables me to eat and drink and even go to the play.... It affords me the opportunity of making most useful and amusing observations. When intending to write, people must see and know everything and laugh at everything. Ah, upon my word, there is nothing like an artist’s life. Our motto is _liberty_.

That is, however, a rather exaggerated boast. We do not precisely enjoy _liberty_ at the _Figaro_. M. de Latouche, our worthy director (ah! you ought to know the fellow), is always hanging over us, cutting, pruning, right or wrong, imposing upon us his whims, his aberrations, his fancies, and we have to write as he bids; for, after all, that is his affair. We are but his working tools.

AURORE DUDEVANT: _Letter to M. Jules Boucoiran_, March, 1831, in ‘Letters of George Sand.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Origin of her pseudonym.]