—— ——: George Sand. ‘Temple Bar.’
Vigor at sixty-eight.
To-day, my sixty-eighth birthday, I will write to you. My health is perfect, in spite of a whooping cough, which, however, does not longer disturb my rest, since I daily plunge myself in a foaming, icy-cold little torrent, winding its way among the pebbles, the flowers, and the grass, under a delightful shade.... I walk all the way to the river, and, quite hot with perspiration, plunge myself in the icy-cold water. The doctor says I am mad; I let him talk and cure myself, whilst his patients nurse themselves and croak. I am like the grass in the fields—water and sun are all I require.
George Sand: Letter to M. Gustave Flaubert, 5th July, 1872, in ‘Letters of George Sand.’
Still later.
I am still discharging the duties of assiduous and patient teacher, and I have little time left for professional writing, seeing that I spend the evening with my family, and can now no longer work after midnight; yet my being pinched for time acts like a stimulant upon me, and causes me to find much pleasure in hard work; it is to me like secretly relishing some forbidden fruit.
George Sand: Letter to M. Gustave Flaubert, December, 1875, in ‘Letters of George Sand.’