"Qui sait si, dans un nouveau code de morale, un nouveau catéchisme religieux, le dégoût et la tristesse ne seront pas flétris comme des vices, tandis que l'amour, l'espoir, et l'admiration seront récompensés comme des vertus?"
This is a beautiful idea of the duties belonging to a happier state of existence; nay, I think that if we were only as good as we easily might be here, even this life would become rather an act of thanksgiving than what it too often is—a record of sighs.
I know not where I should look in order to find thoughts more true, or fanciful ideas more beautifully expressed, than I have met with in this same story, where the occupations and reveries of its heroine are described. Geneviève is by profession a maker of artificial flowers, and the minute study necessary to enable her to imitate skilfully her lovely models has led her to an intimate acquaintance with them, the pleasures of which are described, and her love and admiration of them dwelt upon, in a strain that I am quite persuaded none other but George Sand could utter. It is evident, indeed, throughout all her writings, that the works of nature are the idols she worships. In the "Lettres d'un Voyageur,"—which I trust are only begun, for it is here that the author is perfect, unrivalled, and irreproachable,—she gives a thousand proofs of a heart and imagination which can only be truly at home when far from "the rank city." In writing to a friend in Paris, whom she addresses as a person devoted to the cares and the honours of public life, she says,—"Quand tu vois passer un pauvre oiseau, tu envies son essor, et tu regrettes les cieux." Then she exclaims, "Que ne puis-je t'emmener avec moi sur l'aile des vents inconstans, te faire respirer le grand air des solitudes et t'apprendre le secret des poètes et des Bohémiens!" She has learned that secret, and the use she makes of it places her, in my estimation, wondrously above most of the descriptive poets that France has ever boasted. Yet her descriptions, exquisite as they sometimes are, enchant me less perhaps than the occasional shooting, if I may so express it, of a bold new thought into the regions of philosophy and metaphysics; but it is done so lightly, so playfully, that it should seem she was only jesting when she appears to aim thus wildly at objects so much beyond a woman's ken. "Tous les trônes de la terre ne valent pas pour moi une petite fleur au bord d'un lac des Alpes," she says; and then starts off with this strange query: "Une grande question serait celle de savoir si la Providence a plus d'amour et de respect pour notre charpente osseuse, que pour les pétales embaumés de ses jasmins."
She professes herself (of course) to be a republican; but only says of it, "De toutes les causes dont je ne me soucie pas, c'est la plus belle;" and then adds, quite in her own vein, "Du moins, les mots de patrie et de liberté sont harmonieux—tandis que ceux de légitimité et d'obéissance sont grossiers, mal-sonnans, et faits pour des oreilles de gendarmes."... "Aduler une bûche couronnée," is, she declares, "renoncer à sa dignité d'homme, et se faire académicien."
However, she quizzes her political friend for being "le martyr des nobles ambitions;" adding, "Gouvernez-moi bien tous ces vilains idiots ... je vais chanter au soleil sur une branche, pendant ce tems-là."
In another place, she says that she is "bonne à rien qu'à causer avec l'écho, à regarder lever la lune, et à composer des chants mélancoliques ou moqueurs pour les étudians poètes et les écoliers amoureux."
As a specimen of what this writer's powers of description are, I will give you a few lines from a little story called "Mattéa,"—a story, by the way, that is beautiful, one hardly knows why,—just to show you how she can treat a theme worn threadbare before she was born. Is there, in truth, any picture much less new than that of a gondola, with a guitar in it, gliding along the canals of Venice? But see what she makes of it.
"La guitare est un instrument qui n'a son existence véritable qu'à Venise, la ville silencieuse et sonore. Quand une gondole rase ce fleuve d'encre phosphorescente, où chaque coup de rame enfonce un éclair, tandis qu'une grêle de petites notes légères, nettes, et folâtres, bondit et rebondit sur les cordes que parcourt une main invisible, on voudrait arrêter et saisir cette mélodie faible mais distincte qui agace l'oreille des passans, et qui fuit le long des grandes ombres des palais, comme pour appeler les belles aux fenêtres, et passer en leur disant—Ce n'est pas pour vous la sérénade; et vous ne saurez ni d'où elle vient, ni où elle va."
Could Rousseau himself have chosen apter words? Do they not seem an echo to the sound she describes?
The private history of an author ought never to mix itself with a judgment of his works. Of that of George Sand I know but little; but divining it from the only source that the public has any right to examine,—namely, her writings,—I should be disposed to believe that her story is the old one of affection either ill requited, or in some way or other unfortunate; and there is justice in quoting the passages which seem to indicate this, because they are written in a spirit that, let the circumstances be what they will, must do her honour.