Women of Modern France

by Hugo P. Thieme

Thus, every novel of this authoress consists of a situation and a landscape, the poetic union of which nothing can mar. "Man associated with Nature and Nature with man is a great law of art; no painter has practised it with instinct more delicate or sure." Because Nature, in her early youth, was her inspiration, guide, even her God, she returned to her later in life. M. Jules Lemaître wrote that her works will remain eternally beautiful, because they teach us how to love Nature as divine and good, and to find in that love peace and solace. There are many parts of her work which show as detailed, accurate, and realistic descriptions as those by Balzac. She constantly employed two elements—the fanciful and the realistic.

George Sand never studied or knew how to compose a work, how to preserve the unity of the subject or the unity in tone in characters; hence, there was nothing calculated or premeditated—everything was spontaneous. No preparation of plan did she ever think of—a mode of procedure which naturally resulted in a negligent style and caused the composition to drag. Her inspiration seemed to go so far, then she resorted to her imagination, to the chimerical, forcing events and characters. "There are many defects in the style—such as the sentimental part, the romanesque in the violent expression of sentiments or invention of situations, the exaggerated improbabilities of events, the excessive declamation; but how many compensating qualities are there to offset these defects!"

Her method of writing was very simple. It was the love of writing that impelled her, almost without premeditation, to put into words her dreams, meditations, and chimeras under concrete and living forms. Yet, by the largeness of her sympathy and the ardor of her passions, by the abundant inventions of stories, and by the harmonious word-flow, she deserves to be ranked among the greatest writers of France. Her career, taken as a whole, is one of prodigious fecundity—a literary life that has "enchanted by its fictions or troubled by its dreams" four or five generations. Never diminishing in quality or inspiration, there are surprises in every new work.

No doubt George Sand has, for a generation or more, been somewhat forgotten, but what great writer has not shared the same fate? When the materialistic age has passed away, many famous writers of the past will be resurrected, and with them George Sand; for her novels, although written to please and entertain, discuss questions of religion, philosophy, morality, problems of the heart, conscience, and education,—and this is done in such a dramatic way that one feels all to be true. More than that, her characters are all capable of carrying out, to the end, a common moral and general theme with eloquence seldom found in novels.

An interesting comparison might be made between Mme. de Staël and George Sand, the two greatest women writers of France. Both wrote from their experience of life, and fought passionately against the prejudices and restrictions of social conventions; both were ideal natures and were severely tried in the school of life, profiting by their experiences; both possessed highly sensitive natures, and suffered much; both were keenly enthusiastic and sympathetic, with pardonable weaknesses; both lived through tragic wars; both evinced a dislike for the commonplace and strove for greater freedom, but for different publics, after unhappy marriages, both rose up as accusers against the prevalent system of marrying young girls. But Mme. de Staël was a virtuoso in conversation, a salon queen, and her happiness was to be found in society alone; while George Sand found her happiness in communion with Nature. This explains the two natures, their sufferings, their joys, their writings.

The greatest punishment ever inflicted upon Mme. de Staël was her exile, for it deprived her of her social life, a fact of which the emperor was well aware. Her entire literary effort was directed to describing her social life and the relation of society to life. "She belongs to the moralists and to the writers who wrote of society and man—social psychologists." Not poetic or artistic by nature, but with an exceptional power of observation, she shows on every side the influence of a pedagogical, literary, and social training; she was the product of an artificial culture.

George Sand, on the contrary, was a product of Nature, reared in free intercourse and unrestrained relation with her genius and Nature. A powerful passion and a mighty fantasy made of her a poetess and an artist. These two qualities were manifested in her intense and deep feeling for the beauty of Nature, in her power of invention, in a harmonious equilibrium between idealism and realism. Her fantasy overbalanced her reason, impeding its development and thus relegating it to a secondary rôle. "She is possibly the only French writer who possessed no esprit (in the sense that it is used in French society)—that playful, epigrammatic, querulous wit of conversation."

She never enjoyed communion with others for any length of time, or the companionship of anyone for a long period; the companions of which she never tired were the fields and woods, birds and dogs; therefore, she enjoyed those people most who were nearer her ideals, the peasants and workmen, and these she best describes. Thus, her whole creation is one of instinct rather than of reason, as it was with Mme. de Staël. George Sand was a genius, a master-product of Nature, while Mme. de Staël was a talent, a consummate work of the art of modern culture; she reflects, while George Sand creates from impulse; the latter was a true poetess, communing with Nature, while the banker's daughter was an observing thinker, communicating with society—but both were great writers.

Intimately associated with George Sand is Rosa Bonheur, in all of whose canvases we find the same aim, the same spirit, the same message, that are found in so many of the novels of George Sand. They were two women who have contributed, through different branches, masterworks that will be enjoyed and appreciated at all times. "It would be difficult not to speak of La Mare au Diable and the Meunier d'Angibault when recalling the fields where Rosa Bonheur speeds the plow or places the oxen lowering their patient heads under the yoke."

In the evening, at home, while other members of the family were at work, one member read aloud to the rest; and George Sand was a favorite author with the Bonheur group of artists. It was while reading La Mare au Diable that Rosa conceived the idea of the work which by some critics is pronounced her masterpiece, Plowing in Nivernais. The artist's deep sympathy was aroused by her love of Nature, which no contemporary novelist expressed or appreciated as did George Sand. In all her works, and throughout the long life of the artist, there is absolutely nothing unhealthy or immoral to be found. The novelist had theories which were inspired by her passion, and these became unhealthy at times; she belongs first of all to France, while Rosa Bonheur belongs first of all to the world, her message reaching the young and old of every clime and every people. The novelist is to be associated with the artist by virtue of her exquisite, simple, and wholesome peasant stories.