Late in 1860, Madame Sand was at work on the opening of La Famille de Germandre, when she was stricken down by typhoid fever; but its completion was delayed until the spring of 1861, when she had regained her health after a stay at Tamaris. In this year also appeared Antonia. In 1862, Madame Sand saw the fulfilment of a cherished design: her son Maurice was married to Mademoiselle Calamatta, an event which was a source of great joy to Madame Sand, for the husband and wife settled at Nohant, and thus kept the home circle intact.
The following year, Mademoiselle de La Quintinie appeared, but its chief interest is that it was so strong in controversy that it aroused the anger of the clergy. That it had seized upon the popular sympathy seems to be indicated by George Sand's remarks in a letter to her son, from Paris, March 1, 1864, wherein she says: "I have just returned [she had been witnessing the first performance of Villemer], attended by the students, who shouted: 'George Sand for ever! Mademoiselle de La Quintinie for ever!'" This work can hardly be ranked among the author's important works.
Of her later works, it may be said that L'Autre, the latest of her plays that were quite successful, was adapted with considerable modification from the author's novel La Confession d'une jeune Fille, which had been published six years earlier. Madame Sarah Bernhardt played the heroine's part, and it is interesting to read George Sand's opinion of this talented actress, of whom she writes in October, 1871: "Sarah does not give more consolation [than another leading actress whose foibles had greatly worried Madame Sand], unless her ways have been considerably modified. She is an excellent girl, but she does not study, and is concerned only about enjoying herself. When acting her rôle, she improvises it, which, though sometimes effective, is not always accurate." Le Beau Laurence is the sequel to Pierre qui Roule, and both works are tales of actors and stage adventures. The incidents are full of variety, and the descriptions picturesque and daring. The heroine of the story, Impéria, is a pure and lovely character, who is delineated with consummate skill; while the other characters, such as would be found in a strolling troupe, are cleverly drawn and handled. Love is, of course, the pivotal force, and here again Madame Sand has shown her wonderful powers of imagination and artistic excellence by unravelling her plot in the most attractive and artistic fashion.
Le Chateau de Pictordu, La Tour de Percemont, Le Chêne Parlant, Les Dames Vertes, Le Diable au Champ, as well, of course, as the Contes d'une Grand'mère, were written for the pleasure and instruction of her grandchildren. They not merely discover fresh treasures of imagination, but take us back to the impressions of the author's early childhood days at Nohant. In the Journal d'un Voyageur pendant le Siège, we have the impressions of a close observer, a record of events and conditions which escape the formal historian, and the reflections of a matured mind directed by an active participation in the public affairs of her time. Nanon is a tale of the Revolutionary period, and is a very picturesque work, full of spirit and touching incidents. The rustic heroine is another of the sweet women characters that George Sand has known so well how to depict; the signs of old age are certainly not discoverable in this fresh and entertaining work.
Besides these, the last ten years of her life produced Malgré Tout, Francia, un Bienfait n'est jamais perdu, Impressions et Souvenirs, Ma Sœur Jeanne, La Laitière et le Pot au Lait, Les deux Frères, Flamarande, Marianne, Dernières Pages, Légendes Rustiques, Fanchette, Nouvelles Lettres d'un Voyageur. The last work of the great author was a critique on Renan's Dialogues et Fragments Philosophiques; it is dated May 6, 1876.
During the same month, Madame Sand had manifested to her anxious family the evidences of an illness of which she still ignored the importance; but at the close of the month, she yielded to their wish that medical treatment should be resorted to. The hold of internal paralysis was, however, too secure, and on June 8th she glided quietly, imperceptibly, over the borderland of life.
Such, in brief, is the life of this extraordinarily gifted woman. We are amazed when we consider the stupendous work she accomplished: the whole list of her writings forms a monumental undertaking. Only the possession of a singularly rare genius could have produced such results. We know from her letters that Madame Sand's literary work was almost a spontaneous creation; her real work consisted in her maternal cares and her vast correspondence. She has said that she sometimes forgot the titles of her works, and that she could not recall the names of her characters or the method by which she worked out her subject. We cannot fail to see that she wrote from the impulse or fulness of her heart, and that her unhewed thoughts were enriched by a golden eloquence with a charm of grace that far excels the results of more carefully wrought-out works.
As a flower unconsciously takes its tints and scents from the elements by which it is surrounded, so George Sand drew from her environments the tone and character of her works. We see throughout, a lack of system, of coordination; it is manifest, of course, that there was artistic modification and development, but there is no strong evidence that the education of the artist counts for much in the success of our author. Among the finest of her works are those which early appeared,—the impulsive outpouring of her heart. She is at her best when unfolding the picture of nature treasured in her mind; when giving free rein to the development of the rôle of the characters conceived by her ardent and poetic imagination; then there is a sweet music in her language and a fervor in her descriptions that wholly fascinate. Like her love of nature, was her fondness for the marvellous. We are told that she vividly remembered her first doubt as to the existence of Father Christmas. This moment was a sorrowful one for the tiny child. How marked this characteristic was, we see in her enjoyment of the fairy-tales and folk-lore which she shared with her child-companions and the peasants at Nohant, and later at the convent; again it finds voice in Consuelo, The Snow Man, and the plays and stories written for her children and grandchildren.
George Sand's imagination was never at rest. To it her greatness and much of her suffering are alike traceable. In her friendships, she conceived too lofty an ideal; few persons could bear the test of her standard: her mother, her grandmother, her husband, political and social guides—all suffered from the discrepancy between her estimate of what they should be and what they were. To this fact it seems not altogether unreasonable to attribute the succession of reproaches, embroilments, and separations that attended the career of this marvellous woman. She is glad to escape from the distress she suffers from her mother's angry outbreaks and find relief with the Duplessis family; she finds life intolerable with her husband; again, there is evidence that the same exacting ideal was responsible for the differences with De Musset, Pagello, Chopin, Michel, Lammenais, and even Mazzini. Once a principle was believed to be right, she could not fetter its application by any considerations of expediency. At least, this is generally so as to the early years; later, it underwent some modification. Conscious of her own rectitude, Madame Sand fearlessly gave utterance to the decisions of her energetic mind. With her, a sentiment speedily becomes a feeling, and the feeling calls for expression. "My calling is to abhor evil, to love good, and to bend the knee to the beautiful," is her conviction in 1836, as she states it.
As in her novels, so in her political writings George Sand pursued an ideal. In a letter to her friend Mazzini, written in 1850, she says: "My Communism supposes men to be quite different from what they are, but such as I feel they should be. The ideal, the dream of my social happiness, is in the sentiments I feel in myself." She acted from the heart more than from the mind; she could not reduce her principles to a formula, of which, she says, if she had one: "I would part with it very cheaply." And again: "My whole heart is in what I say to you; when you are fully acquainted with me, you will know that you can blindly trust in the instinct of my heart."