CXXXVIII. TO GEORGE SAND
10 December, Friday, 10 o'clock in the evening, 1869
Dear master, good as good bread,
I have just sent you by telegraph this message: "To Girardin." La
Liberte will publish your article, at once. What do you think of my
friend Saint-Victor, who has refused to write an article about it
because he finds "the book bad"? you have not such a conscience as
that, have you?
I continue to be rolled in the mud. La Gironde calls me Prudhomme.
That seems new to me.
How shall I thank you? I feel the need of saying affectionate
things to you. I have so many in my heart that not one comes to the
tips of my fingers. What a splendid woman you are and what a
splendid man! To say nothing of all the other things!
CXXXIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, Friday to Saturday during the night, 10 to 11 December, 1869
I have rewritten my article [Footnote: The article, Sur l'Education
sentimentale, de Flaubert, was printed in the Questions d'art et de
litterature, Calmann-Levy, p. 415.] today and this evening, I am
better, it is clearer. I am expecting your telegram tomorrow. If you
do not put your veto on it, I shall send the article to Ulbach, who
begins his paper the 15th of this month; he wrote to me this morning
to beg me urgently for any article I would send him. I think this
first number will be widely read, and it would be good publicity.
Michel Levy would be a better judge than we as to what is the best
to do: consult him.
You seem astonished at the ill will. You are too simple. You do not
know how original your book is, and how many personal feelings must
be offended by the force it contains. You think you are doing things
that will pass as a letter in the mail; ah! well, yes!
I have insisted on the PLAN of your book; that is what they
understand the least and it is what is the most important. I tried
to show the ordinary people how they should read; for it is the
ordinary people who make successes. The clever ones don't like the
successes of others. I don't pay attention to the malicious; it
would honor them too much.