There we must leave Flaubert, the thinker. He never passes beyond
that point in his vision of reconstruction: a "legitimate
aristocracy" established in contempt of the average man--with the
Academy of Sciences displacing the Pope.

George Sand, amid these devastating external events, is beginning to
feel the insidious siege of years. She can no longer rally her
spiritual forces with the "bright speed" that she had in the old
days. The fountain of her faith, which has never yet failed of
renewal, fills more slowly. For weeks she broods in silence, fearing
to augment her friend's dismay with more of her own, fearing to
resume a debate in which her cause may be better than her arguments
and in which depression of her physical energy may diminish her
power to put up a spirited defence before the really indomitable
"last ditch" of her position.  When Flaubert himself makes a
momentary gesture towards the white flag, and talks of retreat, she
seizes the opportunity for a short scornful sally. "Go to live in
the sun in a tranquil country! Where? What country is going to be
tranquil in this struggle of barbarity against civilization, a
struggle which is going to be universal?" A month later she gives
him fair warning that she has no intention of acknowledging final
defeat: "For me, the ignoble experiment that Paris is attempting or
is undergoing, proves nothing against the laws of the eternal
progression of men and things, and, if I have gained any principles
in my mind, good or bad, they are neither shattered nor changed by
it. For a long time I have accepted patience as one accepts the sort
of weather there is, the length of winter, old age, lack of success
in all its forms." But Flaubert, thinking that he has detected in
her public utterances a decisive change of front, privately urges
her in a finely figurative passage of a letter which denounces
modern republicanism, universal suffrage, compulsory education, and
the press--Flaubert urges her to come out openly in renunciation of
her faith in humanity and her popular progressivistic doctrines. I
must quote a few lines of his attempt at seduction:

"Ah, dear good master, if you could only hate! That is what you
lack, hate. In spite of your great Sphinx eyes, you have seen the
world through a golden colour. That comes from the sun in your
heart; but so many shadows have risen that now you are not
recognizing things any more. Come now! Cry out! Thunder! Take your
great lyre and touch the brazen string: the monsters will flee.
Bedew us with drops of the blood of wounded Themis."

That summons roused the citadel, but not to surrender, not to
betrayal. The eloquent daughter of the people caught up her great
lyre--in the public Reponse a un ami of October 3, 1871. But her
fingers passed lightly over the "brazen string" to pluck again with
old power the resonant golden notes. Her reply, with its direct
retorts to Flaubert, is not perhaps a very closely reasoned
argument. In making the extract I have altered somewhat the order of
the sentences:

"And what, you want me to stop loving? You want me to say that I
have been mistaken all my life, that humanity is contemptible,
hateful, that it always has been and always will be so? ... What,
then, do you want me to do, so as to isolate myself from my kind,
from my compatriots, from the great family in whose bosom my own
family is only one ear of corn in the terrestrial field? ... But it
is impossible, and your steady reason puts up with the most
unreasonable of Utopias. In what Eden, in what fantastic Eldorado
will you hide your family, your little group of friends, your
intimate happiness, so that the lacerations of the social state and
the disasters of the country shall not reach them? ... In vain you
are prudent and withdraw, your refuge will be invaded in its turn,
and in perishing with human civilization you will be no greater a
philosopher for not having loved, than those who threw themselves
into the flood to save some debris of humanity. ... The people, you
say! The people is yourself and myself. It would be useless to deny
it. There are not two races. ... No, no, people do not isolate
themselves, the ties of blood are not broken, people do not curse or
scorn their kind. Humanity is not a vain word. Our life is composed
of love, and not to love is to cease to live."

This is, if you please, an effusion of sentiment, a chant of faith.
In a world more and more given to judging trees by their fruits, we
should err if we dismissed this sentiment, this faith, too lightly.
Flaubert may have been a better disputant; he had a talent for
writing. George Sand may have chosen her side with a truer instinct;
she had a genius for living. This faith of hers sustained well the
shocks of many long years, and this sentiment made life sweet.

STUART P. SHERMAN




I. TO GEORGE SAND
1863

Dear Madam,

I am not grateful to you for having performed what you call a duty.
The goodness of your heart has touched me and your sympathy has made
me proud. That is the whole of it.

Your letter which I have just received gives added value to your
article [Footnote:  Letter about Salammbo, January, 1863, Questions
d'art et de litterature.] and goes on still further, and I do not
know what to say to you unless it be that _I_ QUITE FRANKLY LIKE
YOU.

It was certainly not I who sent you in September, a little flower in
an envelope. But, strange to say, at the same time, I received in
the same manner, a leaf of a tree.

As for your very cordial invitation, I am not answering yes or no,
in true Norman fashion. Perhaps some day this summer I shall
surprise you. For I have a great desire to see you and to talk with
you.

It would be very delightful to have your portrait to hang on the
wall in my study in the country where I often spend long months
entirely alone. Is the request indiscreet? If not, a thousand thanks
in advance. Take them with the others which I reiterate.




II. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 15 March, 1864

Dear Flaubert,

I don't know whether you lent me or gave me M. Taine's beautiful
book. In the uncertainty I am returning it to you. Here I have had
only the time to read a part of it, and at Nohant, I shall have only
the time to scribble for Buloz; but when I return, in two months, I
shall ask you again for this admirable work of which the scope is so
lofty, so noble.

I am sorry not to have said adieu to you; but as I return soon, I
hope that you will not have forgotten me and that you will let me
read something of your own also.

You were so good and so sympathetic to me at the first performance
of Villemer that I no longer admire only your admirable talent, I
love you with all my heart.

George Sand



III. TO GEORGE SAND
Paris, 1866

Why of course I am counting on your visit at my own house. As for
the hindrances which the fair sex can oppose to it, you will not
notice them (be sure of it) any more than did the others. My little
stories of the heart or of the senses are not displayed on the
counter. But as it is far from my quarter to yours and as you might
make a useless trip, when you arrive in Paris, give me a rendezvous.
And at that we shall make another to dine informally tete-a-tete.

I sent your affectionate little greeting to Bouilhet.

At the present time I am disheartened by the populace which rushes
by under my windows in pursuit of the fatted calf. And they say that
intelligence is to be found in the street!



IV. To M. Flobert (Justave) M.
of Letters Boulevard du Temple, 42, Paris Paris, 10 May, 1866

[The postage stamp bears the mark Palaiseau 9 May, '66.]

M. Flobaire, You must be a truly dirty oaf to have taken my name and
written a letter with it to a lady who had some favors for me which
you doubtless received in my place and inherited my hat in place of
which I have received yours which you left there. It is the lowness
of that lady's conduct and of yours that make me think that she
lacks education entirely and all those sentiments which she ought to
understand. If you are content to have written Fanie and Salkenpeau
I am content not to have read them. You mustn't get excited about
that, I saw in the papers that there were outrages against the
Religion in whose bosom I have entered again after the troubles I
had with that lady when she made me come to my senses and repent of
my sins with her and, in consequence if I meet you with her whom I
care for no longer you shall have my sword at your throat. That will
be the Reparation of my sins and the punishment of your infamy at
the same time. That is what I tell you and I salute you.

Coulard

At Palaiseau with the Monks

They told me that I was well punished for associating with the girls
from the theatre and with aristocrats.



V. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
1866

Sir,

After the most scrupulous combined searches I found at last the body
of my beloved brother. You are in belles-lettres and you would have
been struck by the splendor of that scene. The corpse which was a
Brother extended nonchalantly on the edge of a foul ditch. I forgot
my sorrow a moment to contemplate he was good this young man whom
the matches killed, but the real guilty one was that woman whom
passions have separated in this disordered current in which our
unhappy country is at the moment when it is more to be pitied than
blamed for there are still men who have a heart. You who express
yourself so well tell that siren that she has destroyed a great
citizen. I don't need to tell you that we count on you to dig his
noble tomb. Tell Silvanit also that she can come notwithstanding for
education obliges me to offer her a glass of wine. I have the honor
to salute you.

I also have the honor to salute Silvanit for whom I am a brother
much to be pitied.

Goulard the elder

Have the goodness to transmit to Silvanit the last wishes of my poor
Theodore. [Footnote: Letter written by Eugene Lambert.]



VI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Palaiseau 14 May, 1866

This is not a letter from Goulard. He is dead! The false Goulard
killed him by surpassing him in the real and the comic. But this
false Goulard also does not deny himself anything, the rascal!

Dear friend, I must tell you that I want to dedicate to you my novel
which is just coming out. But as every one has his own ideas on the
subject--as Goulard would say--I would like to know if you permit me
to put at the head of my title page simply: to my friend Gustave
Flaubert. I have formed the habit of putting my novels under the
patronage of a beloved name. I dedicated the last to Fromentin.

I am waiting until it is good weather to ask you to come to dine at
Palaiseau with Goulard's Sirenne, and some other Goulards of your
kind and of mine. Up to now it has been frightfully cold and it is
not worth the trouble to come to the country to catch a cold.

I have finished my novel, and you?

I kiss the two great diamonds which adorn your face.

Jorje Sens

The elder Goulard is my little Lambert, it seems to me that he is
quite literary in that way.



VII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Palaiseau, Wednesday, 16 May, 1866

Well, my dear friend, since you are going away, and as in a
fortnight, I am going to Berry for two or three months, do try to
find time to come tomorrow Thursday. You will dine with dear and
interesting Marguerite Thuillier who is also going away.

Do come to see my hermitage and Sylvester's. By leaving Paris, gare
de Sceaux, at I o'clock, you will be at my house at 2 o'clock, or by
leaving at 5, you will be there at 6, and in the evening you could
leave with my strolling players at 9 or 10. Bring the copy.
[Footnote:  This refers to Monsieur Sylveitre, which had just
appeared.] Put in it all the criticisms which occur to you. That
will be very good for me. People ought to do that for each other as
Balzac and I used to do. That doesn't make one person alter the
other; quite the contrary, for in general, one gets more determined
in one's moi, one completes it, explains it better, entirely
develops it, and that is why friendship is good, even in literature,
where the first condition of any worth is to be one's self.

If you can not come--I shall have a thousand regrets, but then I am
depending upon you Monday before dinner. Au revoir and thank you for
the fraternal permission of dedication.

G. Sand



VIII. TO GEORGE SAND
Paris, 17 or 18 May, 1866

Don't expect me at your house on Monday. I am obliged to go to
Versailles on that day. But I shall be at Magny's.

A thousand fond greetings from your

G. Flaubert



IX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 31 July, 1866

My good dear comrade,

Will you really be in Paris these next few days as you led me to
hope? I leave here the 2nd. What good luck if I found you at dinner
on the following Monday. And besides, they are putting on a play
[Footnote: Les Don Juan de village.] by my son and me, on the 10th.
Could I possibly get along without you on that day? I shall feel
some EMOTION this time because of my dear collaborator. Be a good
friend and try to come! I embrace you with all my heart in that
hope.

The late Goulard,
G. Sand.



X. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 4 Aug., 1866

Dear friend, as I'm always out, I don't want you to come and find
the door shut and me far away. Come at six o'clock and dine with me
and my children whom I expect tomorrow. We dine at Magny's always at
6 o'clock promptly. You will give us 'a sensible pleasure' as used
to say, as would have said, alas, the unhappy Goulard. You are an
exceedingly kind brother to promise to be at Don Juan. For that I
kiss you twice more.

G. Sand

Saturday evening.



XI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

It is next THURSDAY,

I wrote you last night, and our letters must have crossed.

Yours from the heart,

G. Sand

Sunday, 5 August, 1866.



XII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, Wednesday evening, 22 August, 1866

My good comrade and friend, I am going to see Alexandre at Saint-
Valery Saturday evening. I shall stay there Sunday and Monday, I
shall return Tuesday to Rouen and go to see you. Tell me how that
strikes you. I shall spend the day with you if you like, returning
to spend the night in Rouen, if I inconvenience you as you are
situated, and I shall leave Wednesday morning or evening for Paris.
A word in response at once, by telegraph if you think that your
answer would not reach me by post before Saturday at 4 o'clock.

I think that I shall be all right but I have a horrid cold. If it
grows too bad, I shall telegraph that I can not stir; but I have
hopes, I am already better.

I embrace you.

G. Sand



XIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Saint-Valery, 26 August, 1866 Monday, 1 A.M.

Dear friend, I shall be in Rouen on Tuesday at 1 o'clock, I shall
plan accordingly. Let me explore Rouen which I don't know, or show
it to me if you have the time. I embrace you. Tell your mother how
much I appreciate and am touched, by the kind little line which she
wrote to me.

G. Sand



XIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Paris, 31 August, 1866

First of all, embrace your good mother and your charming niece for
me. I am really touched by the kind welcome I received in your
clerical setting, where a stray animal of my species is an anomaly
that one might find constraining. Instead of that, they received me
as if I were one of the family and I saw that all that great
politeness came from the heart. Remember me to all the very kind
friends. I was truly exceedingly happy with you. And then, you, you
are a dear kind boy, big man that you are, and I love you with all
my heart. My head is full of Rouen, of monuments and queer houses.
All of that seen with you strikes me doubly. But your house, your
garden, your CITADEL, it is like a dream and it seems to me that I
am still there.

I found Paris very small yesterday, when crossing the bridges.

I want to start back again. I did not see you enough, you and your
surroundings; but I must rush off to the children, who are calling
and threatening me. I embrace you and I bless you all.

G. Sand

Paris, Friday.

On going home yesterday, I found Couture to whom I said on your
behalf that HIS portrait of me was, according to you, the best that
anyone had made. He was not a little flattered. I am going to hunt
up an especially good copy to send you.

I forgot to get three leaves from the tulip tree, you must send them
to me in a letter, it is for something cabalistic.



XV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 2 September, 1866

Send me back the lace shawl. My faithful porter will forward it to
me wherever I am. I don't know yet. If my children want to go with
me into Brittany, I shall go to fetch them, if not I shall go on
alone wherever chance leads me. In travelling, I fear only
distractions. But I take a good deal on myself and I shall end by
improving myself. You write me a good dear letter which I kiss.
Don't forget the three leaves from the tulip tree. They are asking
me at the Odeon to let them perform a fairy play: la Nuit de Noel
from the Theatre de Nohant, I don't want to, it's too small a thing.
But since they have that idea, why wouldn't they try your fairy
play? Do you want me to ask them? I have a notion that this would be
the right theatre for a thing of that type. The management, Chilly
and Duquesnel, wants to have scenery and MACHINERY and yet keep it
literary. Let us discuss this when I return here.

You still have the time to write to me. I shall not leave for three
days yet. Love to your family.

G. S.

Sunday evening

I forgot! Levy promises to send you my complete works, they are
endless. You must stick them on a shelf in a corner and dig into
them when your heart prompts you.



XVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 21 September, 1866

I have just returned from a twelve days trip with my children, and
on getting home I find your two letters. That fact, added to the joy
of seeing Mademoiselle Aurore again, fresh and pretty, makes me
quite happy. And you my Benedictine, you are quite alone in your
ravishing monastery, working and never going out? That is what it
means TO HAVE ALREADY gone out too much. Monsieur craves Syrias,
deserts, dead seas, dangers and fatigues! But nevertheless he can
make Bovarys in which every little cranny of life is studied and
painted with mastery. What an odd person who can also compose the
fight between the Sphinx and the Chimaera! You are a being quite
apart, very mysterious, gentle as a lamb with it all. I have had a
great desire to question you, but a too great respect for you has
prevented me; for I know how to make light only of my own
calamities, while those which a great mind has had to undergo so as
to be in a condition to produce, seem to me like sacred things which
should not be touched roughly nor thoughtlessly.

Sainte-Beuve, who loves you all the same, claims that you are
horribly vicious. But perhaps he may see with somewhat unclean eyes,
like this learned botanist who asserts that the germander  is of
DIRTY yellow color. The observation was so false, that I could not
refrain from writing on the margin of his book: IT IS BECAUSE YOU
HAVE DIRTY EYES.

I suppose that a man of intelligence may have great curiosity.  I
have not had it, lacking the courage. I have preferred to leave my
mind incomplete, that is my affair, and every one is free to embark
either on a great ship in full sail, or on a fisherman's vessel. The
artist is an explorer whom nothing ought to stop, and who does
neither good nor ill when turning to the right or to the left. His
end justifies all.

It is for him to know after a little experience, what are the
conditions of his soul's health. As for me, I think that yours is in
a good condition of grace, since you love to work and to be alone in
spite of the rain.

Do you know that, while there has been a deluge everywhere, we have
had, except a few downpours, fine sunshine in Brittany? A horrible
wind on the shore, but how beautiful the high surf! and since the
botany of the coast carried me away, and Maurice and his wife have a
passion for shellfish, we endured it all gaily. But on the whole,
Brittany is a famous see-saw.

However, we are a little fed up with dolmens and menhirs and we have
fallen on fetes and have seen costumes which they said had been
suppressed but which the old people still wear. Well! These men of
the past are ugly with their home-spun trousers, their long hair,
their jackets with pockets under the arms, their sottish air, half
drunkard, half saint. And the Celtic relics, uncontestably curious
for the archaeologist, have naught for the artist, they are badly
set, badly composed, Carnac and Erdeven have no physiognomy. In
short, Brittany shall not have my bones! I prefer a thousand times
your rich Normandy, or, in the days when one has dramas in his HEAD,
a real country of horror and despair. There is nothing in a country
where priests rule and where Catholic vandalism has passed, razing
monuments of the ancient world and sowing the plagues of the future.

You say US a propos of the fairy play. I don't know with whom you
have written it, but I still fancy that it ought to succeed at the
Odeon under its present management. If I was acquainted with it, I
should know how to accomplish for you what one never knows how to do
for one's self, namely, to interest the directors. Anything of yours
is bound to be too original to be understood by that coarse Dumaine.
Do have a copy at your house, and next month I shall spend a day
with you in order to have you read it to me. Le Croisset is so near
to Palaiseau!--and I am in a phase of tranquil activity, in which I
should love to see your great river flow, and to keep dreaming in
your orchard, tranquil itself, quite on top of the cliff. But I am
joking, and you are working. You must forgive the abnormal
intemperance of one who has just been seeing only stones and has not
perceived even a pen for twelve days.

You are my first visit to the living on coming out from the complete
entombment of my poor Moi. Live! There is my oremus and my
benediction and I embrace you with all my heart.

G. Sand



XVII. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, 1866

I a mysterious being, dear master, nonsense! I think that I am
sickeningly platitudinous, and I am sometimes exceedingly bored with
the bourgeois which I have under my skin. Sainte-Beuve, between
ourselves, does not know me at all, no matter what he says. I even
swear to you (by the smile of your grandchild) that I know few men
less vicious than I am. I have dreamed much and have done very
little. What deceives the superficial observer is the lack of
harmony between my sentiments and my ideas. If you want my
confession, I shall make it freely to you. The sense of the
grotesque has restrained me from an inclination towards a disorderly
life. I maintain that cynicism borders on chastity. We shall have
much to say about it to each other (if your heart prompts you) the
first time we see each other.

Here is the program that I propose to you. My house will be full and
uncomfortable for a month. But towards the end of October or the
beginning of November (after Bouilhet's play) nothing will prevent
you, I hope, from returning here with me, not for a day, as you say,
but for a week at least. You shall have "your little table and
everything necessary for writing." Is it agreed?

As for the fairy play, thanks for your kind offers of service. I
shall get hold of the thing for you (it was done in collaboration
with Bouilhet). But I think it is a trifle weak and I am torn
between the desire of gaining a few piasters and the shame of
showing such a piece of folly.

I think that you are a little severe towards Brittany, not towards
the Bretons who seem to me repulsive animals. A propos of Celtic
archaeology, I published in L'Artiste in 1858, a rather good hoax on
the shaking stones, but I have not the number here and I don't
remember the month.

I read, straight through, the 10 volumes of Histoire de ma vie, of
which I knew about two thirds but only fragmentarily. What struck me
most was the life in the convent. I have a quantity of observations
to make to you which occurred to me.



XVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 28 September, 1866

It is agreed, dear comrade and good friend. I shall do my best to be
in Paris for the performance of your friend's play, and I shall do
my fraternal duty there as usual; after which we shall go to your
house and I shall stay there a week, but on condition that you will
not put yourself out of your room. To be an inconvenience distresses
me and I don't need so much bother in order to sleep. I sleep
everywhere, in the ashes, or under a kitchen bench, like a stable
dog. Everything shines with spotlessness at your house, so one is
comfortable everywhere. I shall pick a quarrel with your mother and
we shall laugh and joke, you and I, much and more yet. If it's good
weather, I shall make you go out walking, if it rains continually,
we shall roast our bones before the fire while telling our heart
pangs. The great river will run black or grey under the window
saying always, QUICK! QUICK! and carrying away our thoughts, and our
days, and our nights, without stopping to notice such small things.

I have packed and sent by EXPRESS a good proof of Couture's picture,
signed by the engraver, my poor friend, Manceau. It is the best that
I have and I have only just found it. I have sent with it a
photograph of a drawing by Marchal which was also like me; but one
changes from year to year. Age gives unceasingly another character
to the face of people who think and study, that is why their
portraits do not look like one another nor like them for long. I
dream so much and I live so little, that sometimes I am only three
years old. But, the next day I am three hundred, if the dream has
been sombre. Isn't it the same with you? Doesn't it seem at moments,
that you are beginning life without even knowing what it is, and at
other times don't you feel over you the weight of several thousand
centuries, of which you have a vague remembrance and a sorrowful
impression? Whence do we come and whither do we go? All is possible
since all is unknown.

Embrace your beautiful, good mother for me. I shall give myself a
treat, being with you two. Now try to find that hoax on the Celtic
stones; that would interest me very much. When you saw them, had
they opened the galgal of Lockmariaker and cleared away the ground
near Plouharnel?

Those people used to write, because there are stones covered with
hieroglyphics, and they used to work in gold very well, because very
beautifully made torques [Footnote: Gallic necklaces.] have been
found.

My children, who are, like myself, great admirers of you, send you
their compliments, and I kiss your forehead, since Sainte-Beuve
lied.

G. Sand

Have you any sun today? Here it is stifling. The country is lovely.
When will you come here?



XIX. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, Saturday evening, ... 1866

Good, I have it, that beautiful, dear and famous face! I am going to
have a large frame made and hang it on my wall, being able to say,
as did M. de Talleyrand to Louis Philippe: "It is the greatest honor
that my house has received"; a poor phrase, for we two are worth
more than those two amiable men.

Of the two portraits, I like that of Couture's the better. As for
Marchal's he saw in you only "the good woman," but I who am an old
Romantic, find in the other, "the head of the author" who made me
dream so much in my youth.



XX. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, Saturday evening, 1866

Your sending the package of the two portraits made me think that you
were in Paris, dear master, and I wrote you a letter which is
waiting for you at rue des Feuillantines.

I have not found my article on the dolmens. But I have my manuscript
(entire) of my trip in Brittany among my "unpublished works." We
shall have to gabble when you are here. Have courage.

I don't experience, as you do, this feeling of a life which is
beginning, the stupefaction of a newly commenced existence. It seems
to me, on the contrary, that I have always lived! And I possess
memories which go back to the Pharaohs. I see myself very clearly at
different ages of history, practising different professions and in
many sorts of fortune. My present personality is the result of my
lost personalities. I have been a boatman on the Nile, a leno in
Rome at the time of the Punic wars, then a Greek rhetorician in
Subura where I was devoured by insects. I died during the Crusade
from having eaten too many grapes on the Syrian shores, I have been
a pirate, monk, mountebank and coachman. Perhaps also even emperor
of the East?

Many things would be explained if we could know our real genealogy.
For, since the elements which make a man are limited, should not the
same combinations reproduce themselves? Thus heredity is a just
principle which has been badly applied.

There is something in that word as in many others. Each one takes it
by one end and no one understands the other. The science of
psychology will remain where it lies, that is to say in shadows and
folly, as long as it has no exact nomenclature, so long as it is
allowed to use the same expression to signify the most diverse
ideas. When they confuse categories, adieu, morale!

Don't you really think that since '89 they wander from the point?
Instead of continuing along the highroad which was broad and
beautiful, like a triumphal way, they stray off by little sidepaths
and flounder in mud holes. Perhaps it would be wise for a little
while to return to Holbach. Before admiring Proudhon, supposing one
knew Turgot? But le Chic, that modern religion, what would become of
it!

Opinions chic (or chiques): namely being pro-Catholicism (without
believing a word of it) being pro-Slavery, being pro-the House of
Austria, wearing mourning for Queen Amelie, admiring Orphee aux
Enfers, being occupied with Agricultural Fairs, talking Sport,
acting indifferent, being a fool up to the point of regretting the
treaties of 1815. That is all that is the very newest.

Oh! You think that because I pass my life trying to make harmonious
phrases, in avoiding assonances, that I too have not my little
judgments on the things of this world? Alas! Yes! and moreover I
shall burst, enraged at not expressing them.

But a truce to joking, I should finally bore you.

The Bouilhet play will open the first part of November. Then in a
month we shall see each other.

I embrace you very warmly, dear master.



XXI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Nohant, Monday evening, 1 October, 1866

Dear friend,

Your letter was forwarded to me from Paris. It isn't lost. I think
too much of them to let any be lost. You don't speak to me of the
floods, therefore I think that the Seine did not commit any follies
at your place and that the tulip tree did not get its roots wet. I
feared lest you were anxious and wondered if your bank was high
enough to protect you. Here we have nothing of that sort to be
afraid of; our streams are very wicked, but we are far from them.

You are happy in having such clear memories of other existences.
Much imagination and learning--those are your memories; but if one
does not recall anything distinct, one has a very lively feeling of
one's own renewal in eternity. I have a very amusing brother who
often used to say "at the time when I was a dog. ..." He thought
that he had become man very recently. I think that I was vegetable
or mineral. I am not always very sure of completely existing, and
sometimes I think I feel a great fatigue accumulated from having
lived too much. Anyhow, I do not know, and I could not, like you,
say, "I possess the past."

But then you believe that one does not really die, since one LIVES
AGAIN? If you dare to say that to the Smart Set, you have courage
and that is good. I have the courage which makes me pass for an
imbecile, but I don't risk anything; I am imbecile under so many
other counts.

I shall be enchanted to have your written impression of Brittany, I
did not see enough to talk about. But I sought a general impression
and that has served me for reconstructing one or two pictures which
I need. I shall read you that also, but it is still an unformed
mass.

Why did your trip remain unpublished? You are very coy. You don't
find what you do worth being described. That is a mistake. All that
issues from a master is instructive, and one should not fear to show
one's sketches and drawings. They are still far above the reader,
and so many things are brought down to his level that the poor devil
remains common. One ought to love common people more than oneself,
are they not the real unfortunates of the world? Isn't it the people
without taste and without ideals who get bored, don't enjoy anything
and are useless? One has to allow oneself to be abused, laughed at,
and misunderstood by them, that is inevitable. But don't abandon
them, and always throw them good bread, whether or not they prefer
filth; when they are sated with dirt they will eat the bread; but if
there is none, they will eat filth in secula seculorum.

I have heard you say, "I write for ten or twelve people only." One
says in conversation, many things which are the result of the
impression of the moment; but you are not alone in saying that. It
was the opinion of the Lundi or the thesis of that day. I protested
inwardly. The twelve persons for whom you write, who appreciate you,
are as good as you are or surpass you. You never had any need of
reading the eleven others to be yourself. But, one writes for all
the world, for all who need to be initiated; when one is not
understood, one is resigned and recommences. When one is understood,
one rejoices and continues. There lies the whole secret of our
persevering labors and of our love of art. What is art without the
hearts and minds on which one pours it? A sun which would not
project rays and would give life to no one.

After reflecting on it, isn't that your opinion? If you are
convinced of that, you will never know disgust and lassitude, and if
the present is sterile and ungrateful, if one loses all influence,
all hold on the public, even in serving it to the best of one's
ability, there yet remains recourse to the future, which supports
courage and effaces all the wounds of pride. A hundred times in
life, the good that one does seems not to serve any immediate use;
but it keeps up just the same the tradition of wishing well and
doing well, without which all would perish.

Is it only since '89 that people have been floundering? Didn't they
have to flounder in order to arrive at '48 when they floundered much
more, but so as to arrive at what should be? You must tell me how
you mean that and I will read Turgot to please you. I don't promise
to go as far as Holbach, ALTHOUGH HE HAS SOME GOOD POINTS, THE
RUFFIAN!

Summon me at the time of Bouilhet's play. I shall be here, working
hard, but ready to run, and loving you with all my heart. Now that I
am no longer a woman, if the good God was just, I should become a
man; I should have the physical strength and would say to you: "Come
let's go to Carthage or elsewhere." But there, one who has neither
sex nor strength, progresses towards childhood, and it is quite
otherwhere that one is renewed; WHERE? I shall know that before you
do, and, if I can, I shall come back in a dream to tell you.



XXII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 19 October

Dear friend, they write me from the Odeon that Bouilhet's play is on
the 27th. I must be in Paris the 26th. Business calls me in any
event. I shall dine at Magny's on that day, and the next, and the
day after that. Now you know where to find me, for I think that you
will come for the first performance. Yours always, with a full
heart,

G. Sand



XXIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 23 October, 1866

Dear friend, since the play is on the 29th I shall give two more
days to my children and I leave here the 28th. You have not told me
if you will dine with me and your friend on the 29th informally, at
Magny's at whatever hour you wish. Let me find a line at 97 rue des
Feuillantines, on the 28th.

Then we shall go to your house, the day you wish. My chief talk with
you will be to listen to you and to love you with all my heart. I
shall bring what I have "ON THE STOCKS." That will GIVE ME COURAGE,
as they say here, to read to you my EMBRYO. If I could only carry
the sun from Nohant. It is glorious.

I embrace and bless you.

G. Sand



XXIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 10 November, 1866

On reaching Paris I learn sad news. Last evening, while we were
talking--and I think that we spoke of him day before yesterday--my
friend Charles Duveyrier died, a most tender heart and a most naive
spirit. He is to be buried tomorrow. He was one year older than I
am. My generation is passing bit by bit. Shall I survive it? I don't
ardently desire to, above all on these days of mourning and
farewell. It is as God wills, provided He lets me always love in
this world and in the next.

I keep a lively affection for the dead. But one loves the living
differently. I give you the part of my heart that he had. That
joined to what you have already, makes a large share. It seems to me
that it consoles me to make that gift to you. From a literary point
of view he was not a man of the first rank, one loved him for his
goodness and spontaneity. Less occupied with affairs and philosophy,
he would have had a charming talent. He left a pretty play, Michel
Perrin.

I travelled half the way alone, thinking of you and your mother at
Croisset and looking at the Seine, which thanks to you has become a
friendly GODDESS. After that I had the society of an individual with
two women, as ordinary, all of them, as the music at the pantomime
the other day. Example: "I looked, the sun left an impression like
two points in my eyes." HUSBAND: "That is called luminous points,"
and so on for an hour without stopping.

I shall do all sorts of errands for the house, for I belong to it,
do I not? I am going to sleep, quite worn out; I wept unrestrainedly
all the evening, and I embrace you so much the more, dear friend.
Love me MORE than before, because I am sad.

G. Sand

Have you a friend among the Rouen magistrates? If you have, write
him a line to watch for the NAME Amedee Despruneaux. It is a civil
case which will come up at Rouen in a few days. Tell him that this
Despruneaux is the most honest man in the world; you can answer for
him as for me. In doing this, if the thing is feasible, you will do
me a personal favor. I will do the same for any friend of yours.



XXV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
11 November, 1866

I send you my friend Despruneaux in person. If you know a judge or
two,--or if your brother could give him a word of support, do
arrange it, I kiss you three times on each eye.

G. Sand

Five minutes' interview and that's all the inconvenience. Paris,
Sunday



XXVI. TO GEORGE SAND
Monday night

You are sad, poor friend and dear master; it was you of whom I
thought on learning of Duveyrier's death. Since you loved him, I am
sorry for you. That loss is added to others. How we keep these dead
souls in our hearts. Each one of us carries within himself his
necropolis.

I am entirely UNDONE since your departure; it seems to me as if I
had not seen you for ten years. My one subject of conversation with
my mother is you, everyone here loves you. Under what star were you
born, pray, to unite in your person such diverse qualities, so
numerous and so rare?

I don't know what sort of feeling I have for you, but I have a
particular tenderness for you, and one I have never felt for anyone,
up to now. We understood each other, didn't we, that was good.

I especially missed you last evening at ten o'clock. There was a
fire at my wood-seller's. The sky was rose color and the Seine the
color of gooseberry sirup. I worked at the engine for three hours
and I came home as worn out as the Turk with the giraffe.

A newspaper in Rouen, le Nouvelliste, told of your visit to Rouen,
so that Saturday after leaving you I met several bourgeois indignant
at me for not exhibiting you. The best thing was said to me by a
former sub-prefect: "Ah! if we had known that she was here ... we
would have ... we would have ..." he hunted five minutes for the
word; "we would have smiled for her." That would have been very
little, would it not?

To "love you more" is hard for me--but I embrace you tenderly. Your
letter of this morning, so melancholy, reached the BOTTOM of my
heart. We separated at the moment when many things were on the point
of coming to our lips. All the doors between us two are not yet
open. You inspire me with a great respect and I do not dare to
question you.



XXVII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Paris, 13 November, 1866 Night from Tuesday to Wednesday

I have not yet read my play. I have still something to do over.
Nothing pressing. Bouilhet's play goes admirably well, and they told
me that my little friend Cadol's [Footnote: Edward Cadol, a dramatic
author and a friend of Maurice Sand.] play would come next. And, for
nothing in the world, do I want to step on the body of that child.
That puts me quite a distance off and does not annoy me--NOR INJURE
ME AT ALL. What style! Luckily I am not writing for Buloz.

I saw your friend last evening in the foyer at the Odeon. I shook
hands with him. He had a happy look. And then I talked with
Duquesnel about the fairy play. He wants very much to know it. You
have only to present yourself when ever you wish to busy yourself
with it. You will be received with open arms.

Mario Proth will give me tomorrow or next day the exact date on the
transformation of the journal. Tomorrow I shall go out and buy your
dear mother's shoes. Next week I am going to Palaiseau and I shall
hunt up my book on faience. If I forget anything, remind me of it.

I have been ill for two days. I am cured. Your letter does my heart
good. I shall answer all the questions quite nicely, as you have
answered mine. One is happy, don't you think so, to be able to
relate one's whole life? It is much less complicated than the
bourgeois think, and the mysteries that one can reveal to a friend
are always the contrary of what indifferent ones suppose.

I was very happy that week with you: no care, a good nesting-place a
lovely country, affectionate hearts and your beautiful and frank
face which has a somewhat paternal air. Age has nothing to do with
it. One feels in you the protection of infinite goodness, and one
evening when you called your mother "MY DAUGHTER," two tears came in
my eyes. It was hard to go away, but I hindered your work, and
then,--and then,--a malady of my old age is, not being able to keep
still. I am afraid of getting too attached and of wearying others.
The old ought to be extremely discreet. From a distance I can tell
you how much I love you without the fear of repetition. You are one
of the RARE BEINGS remaining impressionable, sincere, loving art,
not corrupted by ambition, not drunk with success. In short you will
always be twenty-five years of age because of all sorts of ideas
which have become old-fashioned according to the senile young men of
today. With them, I think it is decidedly a pose, but it is so
stupid! If it is a weakness, it is still worse. They are MEN OF
LETTERS and not MEN. Good luck to the novel! It is exquisite; but
oddly enough there is one entire side of you which does not betray
itself in what you do, something that you probably are ignorant of.
That will come later, I am sure of it.

I embrace you tenderly, and your mother too, and the charming niece!
[Footnote: Madame Caroline Commanville.] Ah! I forgot, I saw Couture
this evening; he told me that in order to be nice to you, he would
make your portrait in crayon like mine for whatever price you wish
to arrange. You see I am a good commissioner, use me.



XXVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
16 November, 1866

Thanks, dear friend of my heart, for all the trouble that I gave you
with my Berrichon Despruneaux. They are friends from the old
country, a whole adorable family of fine people, fathers, children,
wives, nephews, all in the close circle at Nohant. He must have been
MOVED at seeing you. He looked forward to it, all personal interest
aside. And I who am not practical, forgot to tell you that the
judgment would not be given for a fortnight. That in consequence any
preceding within the next two weeks would be extremely useful. If he
gains his suit relative to the constructions at Yport, he will
settle there and I shall realize the plan formed long since of going
every year to his house; he has a delicious wife and they have loved
me a long time. You then are threatened with seeing me often
scratching at your gate in passing, giving you a kiss on the
forehead, crying courage for your labor and running on.  I am still
awaiting our information on the journal. It seems that it is a
little difficult to be exact for '42. I have asked for the most
scrupulous exactitude.

For two days I have been taking out to walk my Cascaret, [Footnote:
Francis Laur.] the little engineer of whom I told you. He has become
very good looking, the ladies lift their lorgnons at him, and it
depends only on him to attain the dignity of a negro "giraffier,"
but he loves, he is engaged, he has four years to wait, to work to
make himself a position, and he has made a vow. You would tell him
that he is stupid, I preach to him, on the contrary, my old
troubadour doctrine.

Morality aside, I don't think that the children of this day have
sufficient force to manage at the same time, science and
dissipation, cocottes and engagements. The proof is that nothing
comes from young Bohemia any longer. Good night, friend, work well,
sleep well. Walk a little for the love of God and of me. Tell your
judges who promised me a smile, to smile on my Berrichon.



XXIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
16 November, 1866

Don't take any further steps. Contrary to all anticipations,
Despruneaux has gained his suit during the session.

Whether you have done it or not, he is none the less grateful about
it and charges me to thank you with all his good and honest heart.

Bouilhet goes from better to better. I have just seen the directors
who are delighted.

I love you and embrace you.

Think sometimes of your old troubadour. Friday

G. Sand



XXX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
18 November (?), 1866

I think that I shall give you pleasure and joy when I tell you that
La Conjuration d'Ambroise, thus says my porter, is announced as a
real money-maker. There was a line this evening as at Villemer, and
Magny which is also a barometer, shows fair weather.

So be content, if that keeps up, Bouilhet is a success. Sunday

G. S.



XXXI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Palaiseau, 22 November, 1866

I think that it will bring me luck to say good evening to my dear
comrade before starting to work.

I am QUITE ALONE in my little house. The gardener and his family
live in the pavilion in the garden and we are the last house at the
end of the village, quite isolated in the country, which is a
ravishing oasis. Fields, woods, appletrees as in Normandy; not a
great river with its steam whistles and infernal chain; a little
stream which runs silently under the willows; a silence ... ah! it
seems to me that I am in the depths of the virgin forest: nothing
speaks except the little jet of the spring which ceaselessly piles
up diamonds in the moonlight. The flies sleeping in the corners of
my room, awaken at the warmth of my fire. They had installed
themselves there to die, they come near the lamp, they are seized
with a mad gaiety, they buzz, they jump, they laugh, they even have
faint inclinations towards love, but it is the hour of death and
paf! in the midst of the dance, they fall stiff. It is over,
farewell to dancing!

I am sad here just the same. This absolute solitude, which has
always been vacation and recreation for me, is shared now by a dead
soul [Footnote: Alexandre Manceau, the engraver,  a friend of
Maurice Sand.] who has ended here, like a lamp which is going out,
yet which is here still. I do not consider him unhappy in the region
where he is dwelling; but the image that he has left near me, which
is nothing more than a reflection, seems to complain because of
being unable to speak to me any more.

Never mind! Sadness is not unhealthy. It prevents us from drying up.
And you dear friend, what are you doing at this hour? Grubbing also,
alone also; for your mother must be in Rouen. Tonight must be
beautiful down there too. Do you sometimes think of the "old
troubadour of the Inn clock, who still sings and will continue to
sing perfect love?" Well! yes, to be sure! You do not believe in
chastity, sir, that's your affair. But as for me, I say that SHE HAS
SOME GOOD POINTS, THE JADE!

And with this, I embrace you with all my heart, and I am going to,
if I can, make people talk who love each other in the old way.

You don't have to write to me when you don't feel like it. No real
friendship without ABSOLUTE liberty.

In Paris next week, and then again to Palaiseau, and after that to
Nohant. I saw Bouilhet at the Monday performance. I am CRAZY about
it. But some of us will applaud at Magny's. I had a cold sweat
there, I who am so steady, and I saw everything quite blue.



XXXII. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, Tuesday

You are alone and sad down there, I am the same here.

Whence come these attacks of melancholy that overwhelm one at times?
They rise like a tide, one feels drowned, one has to flee. I lie
prostrate. I do nothing and the tide passes.

My novel is going very badly for the moment. That fact added to the
deaths of which I have heard; of Cormenin (a friend of twenty-five
years' standing), of Gavarni, and then all the rest, but that will
pass. You don't know what it is to stay a whole day with your head
in your hands trying to squeeze your unfortunate brain so as to find
a word. Ideas come very easily with you, incessantly, like a stream.
With me it is a tiny thread of water. Hard labor at art is necessary
for me before obtaining a waterfall. Ah! I certainly know THE
AGONIES OF STYLE.

In short I pass my life in wearing away my heart and brain, that is
the real TRUTH about your friend.