It is impossible better to describe the state of perplexity in which genius is placed during a certain period of life, drawn forward by faith and backward by doubt. Meanwhile, as the author of Indiana was then only twenty-five, and had to choose between the bread of independence and daily bread, she took up both painting on fans and painting portraits at 15 francs apiece and also wrote a novel. It was all very precarious work, the poorest transfer copies varnished over produced a greater effect than the young artist's water-colours; for 5 francs—and a better likeness than hers—the same portraits could be had which she sold for 15; finally, the novel seemed so poor to George Sand that she did not even attempt to turn it to account. However, she felt that her true vocation was literature, and she decided to consult some successful literary man.
There was at this period a littérateur in Paris of incontestable and almost uncontested genius, a writer of the first rank, at all events as regards originality. He had published various novels, and the most striking of them had obtained as strange a success as, at the present moment, Ourika and Édouard have had. He had tried the theatre and written a comedy for the Français; it had collapsed amidst thunderous noise! I have given an account of his first and only performance. His name was Henri de Latouche. He was a compatriot of George Sand and a friend of the family. George Sand decided to look him up.
De Latouche, as I have already said, I knew but slightly, and, about 1832, I quarrelled with him because I was not Republican enough to suit him, or, rather, because I belonged to a different style of Republicanism than his. He was at this time a man of forty-five, with a face that scintillated with intellect, with a rather corpulent frame and very courteous manners, although they covered an infinite fund of irony. His language was choice and his speech pure and well-modulated; he spoke as he wrote, or, rather, as he dictated. Was he a suitable guide for a beginner? I have my doubts. De La touche was arbitrary in his opinions; he thought that all who were not devoted to him were hostile, all not for him against him. As timid as a chamois, he continually believed there was a hatched conspiracy on the way to calumniate and destroy him. He retired into his retreat at la Vallée-aux-Loups. His enemies accused him of cowardice and tried to pursue him there; but, if they ventured too far, they returned with their faces marked as with a tiger's claws. He began by teasing the poor novice cruelly, condemning, like Alcestis, all her literary attempts.
"Nevertheless," says George Sand, "beneath all the jeerings and criticism, the sportive, trenchant, amusing mockery he heaped upon me in our interviews, reason, taste, in a word, art, presented itself to me. No one excelled more than he in the destruction of the illusions of conceitedness; but no one had more kindly delicacy in preserving hope and courage. He had a sweet and touching voice, an aristocratic and clear pronunciation, and a manner that was both alluring and teasing. The eye that was put out when he was a child did not disfigure him in the least, the only trace of the accident left was a kind of red fire which shot from the pupil and gave him a strange look of brilliancy when he was excited."
No, the eye did not disfigure de Latouche's face, but it disfigured his character terribly! Perhaps, also, he owed some portion of his latent talent to this blind eye, as Byron did to his lame foot. We will go on quoting George Sand's own words, which complete the picture of de Latouche's character:—
"M. de Latouche loved to instruct, to reprove, to lay down the law; but he quickly lost patience with vain people, and turned his wit against them in derisive compliments, which were inexpressibly malicious. When he met a mind disposed to profit by his lessons, his satire was more kindly; his clutch became paternal and his fiery eye softened; and, after he had emptied the overflowings of his wit upon you, he let you see a tender, sensitive heart beneath, full of devoted and generous feeling."
Six months went by in this kind of work between pupil and master, the master pointing out what the scholar ought to read, himself reading them to her in his own fashion—namely, relating the book to her instead of reading it, adding to the author's narrative the brilliant embroideries of his imagination, letting fall from his lips at every word he uttered a pearl or diamond, as did the fairy in the Thousand and One Nights, of whom we all read in our childhood.
De Latouche was editor of Le Figaro at this period; a species of hussar of opposition, an officer of light cavalry which daily tilted against the Government. The ordinary editors of the paper were Félix Pyat and Jules Sandeau. George Sand was added to them. This addition was a sort of diploma of bachelor of letters. De Latouche's three pupils (I hope, since George Sand accepted the title, that the others will not disown it) had one common editorial office where they met daily at a given hour. It was in this office, seated at the little tables covered with green cloths, that they each wrote copy. Copy, be it understood, is in this case very improperly the synonym for manuscript. De Latouche gave out a subject; they enlarged upon it, and the paper appeared to be written by one single mind, since it had but a single spirit, and that spirit descended, like the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, in tongues of fire upon his disciples. But all these attentions did not serve to make the poor pupil able to dispense with her master. The future author of Indiana and of Valentine, and of so many other wonderful books, did not know how to write a newspaper article, nor how to be brief. De Latouche reserved for her all the sentimental anecdotes which admitted of some enlargement of treatment; but George Sand found she always had to confine herself to the narrow limits of half a column, a column, or a column and a half at most, and, when the article had begun to begin, it had to be ended off; there was no room left for more.
Out of the ten articles George Sand gave to her editor-in-chief, often not a single one was of any use, and often he lit his fire with the copy which, she declares, was no good for anything else. Yet every day he said to her—
"Do not be discouraged, my child. You cannot write an article in ten lines; but, some day, you will write novels in ten volumes. Try, first of all, to rid your mind of imitations; all beginners start by copying others. Don't be anxious, you will gradually find your own feet, and be the first to forget how it all came to you."