sentiments and emotions? Was he to write them with the hearts of other
people? Flaubert maintained that an author should only write for about
twenty persons, unless he simply wrote for himself, "like a _bourgeois_
turning his serviette-rings round in his attic." George Sand was of
opinion that an author should write "for all those who can profit by
good reading." Flaubert confesses that if attention be paid to the
old distinction between matter and form, he should give the greater
importance to form, in which he had a religious belief. He considered
that in the correctness of the putting together, in the rarity of the
elements, the polish of the surface and the perfect harmony of the whole
there was an intrinsic virtue, a kind of divine force. In conclusion, he
adds:
"I endeavour to think well always, _in order to_ write well, but I do
not conceal the fact that my object is to write well."
This, then, was the secret of that working up of the style, until it
became a mania with him and developed into a torture. We all know of
the days of anguish which Flaubert spent in searching for a word that
escaped him, and the weeks that he devoted to rounding off one of his
periods. He would never write these down until he had said them to
himself, or, as he put it himself, until "they had gone through his
jaw." He would not allow two complements in the same phrase, and we are
told that he was ill after reading in one of his own books the following
words: "Une couronne _de_ fleurs _d_'oranger."
"You do not know what it is," he wrote, "to spend a whole day holding
one's head and squeezing one's brains to find a word. Ideas flow with
you freely and continually, like a stream. With me they come like
trickling water, and it is only by a huge work of art that I can get
a waterfall. Ah, I have had some experience of the terrible torture of
style!" No, George Sand certainly had no experience of this kind, and
she could not even conceive of such torture. It amazed her to hear of
such painful labour, for, personally, she let the wind play on her "old
harp" just as it listed.
Briefly, she considered that her friend was the victim of a hopeless
error. He took literature for the essential thing, but there was
something before all literature, and that something was life. "The Holy
of Holies, as you call literature, is only secondary to me in life. I
have always loved some one better than it, and my family better than
that some one."
This, then, was the keynote of the argument. George Sand considered that
life is not only a pretext for literature, but that literature should
always refer to life and should be regulated by life, as by a model
which takes the precedence of it and goes far beyond it. This, too, is
our opinion.
The state of mind which can be read between the lines in George Sand's
letters to Flaubert is serenity, and this is also the characteristic of
her work during the last period of her life. Her "last style" is that
of _Jean de la Rocke_, published in 1860. A young nobleman, Jean de la
Roche, loses his heart to the exquisite Love Butler. She returns his
affection, but the jealousy of a young brother obliges them to separate.
In order to be near the woman he loves, Jean de la Roche disguises
himself as a guide, and accompanies the whole family in an excursion
through the Auvergne mountains. A young nobleman as a guide is by
no means an ordinary thing, but in love affairs such disguises are
admitted. Lovers in the writings of Marivaux took the parts of servants,
and in former days no one was surprised to meet with princes in disguise
on the high-roads.
George Sand's masterpiece of this kind is undoubtedly _Le Marquis
de Villemer_, published in 1861. A provincial _chateau_, an old
aristocratic woman, sceptical and indulgent, two brothers capable of
being rivals without ceasing to be friends, a young girl of noble birth,
but poor, calumny being spread abroad, but quickly repudiated, some
wonderful pages of description, and some elegant, sinuous conversations.
All this has a certain charm. The poor girl marries the Marquis in
the end. This, too, is a return to former days, to the days when kings
married shepherdesses. The pleasure that we have in reading such novels
is very much like that which we used to feel on hearing fairy-stories.
"If some one were to tell me the story of _Peau d'Ane_, I should be
delighted," confessed La Fontaine, and surely it would be bad form to
be more difficult and over-nice than he was. Big children as we are,
we need stories which give food to our imagination, after being
disappointed by the realities of life. This is perhaps the very object
of the novel. Romance is not necessarily an exaggerated aspiration
towards imaginary things. It is something else too. It is the revolt of
the soul which is oppressed by the yoke of Nature. It is the expression
of that tendency within us towards a freedom which is impossible, but
of which we nevertheless dream. An iron law presides over our destiny.
Around us and within us, the series of causes and effects continues
to unwind its hard chain. Every single one of our deeds bears its
consequence, and this goes on to eternity. Every fault of ours will
bring its chastisement. Every weakness will have to be made good. There
is not a moment of oblivion, not an instant when we may cease to be on
our guard. Romantic illusion is, then, just an attempt to escape, at
least in imagination, from the tyranny of universal order.
It is impossible, in this volume, to consider all George Sand's works.
Some of her others are charming, but the whole series would perhaps
appear somewhat monotonous. There is, however, one novel of this epoch
to which we must call attention, as it is like a burst of thunder during
calm weather. It also reveals an aspect of George Sand's ideas which
should not be passed over lightly. This book was perhaps the only
one George Sand wrote under the influence of anger. We refer to
_Mademoiselle La Quintinie_. Octave Feuillet had just published his
_Histoire de Sibylle_, and this book made George Sand furiously angry.
We are at a loss to comprehend her indignation. Feuillet's novel is very
graceful and quite inoffensive. Sibylle is a fanciful young person, who
from her earliest childhood dreams of impossible things. She wants her
grandfather to get a star for her, and another time she wants to ride on
the swan's back as it swims in the pool. When she is being prepared for
her first communion, she has doubts about the truth of the Christian
religion, but one night, during a storm, the priest of the place springs
into a boat and goes to the rescue of some sailors in peril. All the
difficulties of theological interpretations are at once dispelled for
her. A young man falls in love with her, but on discovering that he is
not a believer she endeavours to convert him, and goes moonlight walks
with him. Moonlight is sometimes dangerous for young girls, and, after
one of these sentimental and theological strolls, she has a mysterious
ailment. . . .
In order to understand George Sand's anger on reading this novel, which
was both religious and social, and at the same time very harmless,
we must know what her state of mind was on the essential question of
religion.
In the first place, George Sand was not hostile to religious ideas.
She had a religion. There is a George Sand religion. There are not many
dogmas, and the creed is simple. George Sand believed firmly in the
existence of God. Without the notion of God, nothing can be explained
and no problem solved. This God is not merely the "first cause." It is a
personal and conscious God, whose essential, if not sole, function is to
forgive--every one.
"The dogma of hell," she writes, "is a monstrosity, an imposture, a
barbarism. . . . It is impious to doubt God's infinite pity, and to
think that He does not always pardon, even the most guilty of men." This
is certainly the most complete application that has ever been made of
the law of pardon. This God is not the God of Jacob, nor of Pascal,
nor even of Voltaire. He is not an unknown God either. He is the God of
Beranger and of all good people. George Sand believed also, very
firmly, in the immortality of the soul. On losing any of her family, the
certainty of going to them some day was her great consolation.
"I see future and eternal life before me as a certainty," she said; "it
is like a light, and, thanks to its brilliancy, other things cannot be
seen; but the light is there, and that is all I need." Her belief
was, then, in the existence of God, the goodness of Providence and the
immortality of the soul. George Sand was an adept in natural religion.
She did not accept the idea of any revealed religion, and there was one
of these revealed religions that she execrated. This was the Catholic
religion. Her correspondence on this subject during the period of the
Second Empire is most significant. She was a personal enemy of the
Church, and spoke of the Jesuits as a subscriber to the _Siecle_ might
do to-day. She feared the dagger of the Jesuits for Napoleon III, but at
the same time she hoped there might be a frustrated attempt at murder,
so that his eyes might be opened. The great danger of modern times,
according to her, was the development of the clerical spirit. She was
not an advocate for liberty of education either. "The priestly spirit
has been encouraged," she wrote.(53) "France is overrun with convents,
and wretched friars have been allowed to take possession of education."
She considered that wherever the Church was mistress, it left its marks,
which were unmistakable: stupidity and brutishness. She gave Brittany as
an example.
(53) _Correspondance:_ To Barbes, May 12, 1867.
"There is nothing left," she writes, "when the priest and Catholic
vandalism have passed by, destroying the monuments of the old world and
leaving their lice for the future."(54)
(54) _Ibid.:_ To Flaubert, September 21, 1860.
It is no use attempting to ignore the fact. This is anti-clericalism
in all its violence. Is it not curious that this passion, when once it
takes possession of even the most distinguished minds, causes them to
lose all sentiment of measure, of propriety and of dignity.
_Mademoiselle La Quintinie_ is the result of a fit of anti-clerical
mania. George Sand gives, in this novel, the counterpart of _Sibylle_.
Emile Lemontier, a free-thinker, is in love with the daughter of General
La Quintinie. Emile is troubled in his mind because, as his _fiancee_
is a Catholic, he knows she will have to have a confessor. The idea
is intolerable to him, as, like Monsieur Homais, he considers that
a husband could not endure the idea of his wife having private
conversations with one of those individuals. Mademoiselle La Quintinie's
confessor is a certain Moreali, a near relative of Eugene Sue's Rodin.
The whole novel turns on the struggle between Emile and Moreali, which
ends in the final discomfiture of Moreali. Mademoiselle La Quintinie is
to marry Emile, who will teach her to be a free-thinker. Emile is
proud of his work of drawing a soul away from Christian communion. He
considers that the light of reason is always sufficient for illuminating
the path in a woman's life. He thinks that her natural rectitude will
prove sufficient for making a good woman of her. I do not wish to call
this into question, but even if she should not err, is it not possible
that she may suffer? This free-thinker imagines that it is possible to
tear belief from a heart without rending it and causing an incurable
wound. Oh, what a poor psychologist! He forgets that beliefs the
summing up and the continuation of the belief of a whole series of
generations. He does not hear the distant murmur of the prayers of
by-gone years. It is in vain to endeavour to stifle those prayers; they
will be heard for ever within the crushed and desolate soul.
_Mademoiselle La Quintinie_ is a work of hatred. George Sand was not
successful with it. She had no vocation for writing such books, and
she was not accustomed to writing them. It is a novel full of tiresome
dissertations, and it is extremely dull.
From that date, though, George Sand experienced the joy of a certain
popularity. At theatrical performances and at funerals the students
manifested in her honour. It was the same for Sainte-Beuve, but this
does not seem to have made either of them any greater.
We will pass over all this, and turn to something that we can admire.
The robust and triumphant old age of George Sand was admirable. Nearly
every year she went to some fresh place in France to find a setting for
her stories. She had to earn her living to the very last, and was doomed
to write novels for ever. "I shall be turning my wheel when I die," she
used to say, and, after all, this is the proper ending for a literary
worker.
In 1870 and 1871, she suffered all the anguish of the "Terrible Year."
When once the nightmare was over, she set to work once more like a true
daughter of courageous France, unwilling to give in. She was as hardy
as iron as she grew old. "I walk to the river," she wrote in 1872, "and
bathe in the cold water, warm as I am. . . . I am of the same nature as
the grass in the field. Sunshine and water are all I need."
For a woman of sixty-eight to be able to bathe every day in the cold
water of the Indre is a great deal. In May, 1876, she was not well, and
had to stay in bed. She was ill for ten days, and died without suffering
much. She is buried at Nohant, according to her wishes, so that her last
sleep is in her beloved Berry.
In conclusion, we would say just a few words about George Sand's genius,
and the place that she takes in the history of the French novel.
On comparing George Sand with the novelists of her time, what strikes
us most is how different she was from them. She is neither like Balzac,
Stendhal, nor Merimee, nor any story-teller of our thoughtful, clever
and refined epoch. She reminds us more of the "old novelists," of those
who told stories of chivalrous deeds and of old legends, or, to go still
further back, she reminds us of the _aedes_ of old Greece. In the early
days of a nation there were always men who went to the crowd and charmed
them with the stories they told in a wordy way. They scarcely knew
whether they invented these stories as they told them, or whether they
had heard them somewhere. They could not tell either which was fiction
and which reality, for all reality seemed wonderful to them. All the
people about whom they told were great, all objects were good and
everything beautiful. They mingled nursery-tales with myths that were
quite sensible, and the history of nations with children's stories. They
were called poets.
George Sand did not employ a versified form for her stories, but she
belonged to the family of these poets. She was a poet herself who had
lost her way and come into our century of prose, and she continued her
singing.
Like these early poets, she was primitive. Like them, she obeyed a god
within her. All her talent was instinctive, and she had all the ease
of instinctive talent. When Flaubert complained to George Sand of the
"tortures" that style cost him, she endeavoured to admire him.
"When I see the difficulty that my old friend has in writing his novel,
I am discouraged about my own case, and I say to myself that I am
writing poor sort of literature."
This was merely her charity, for she never understood that there could
be any effort in writing. Consequently she could not understand that it
should cause suffering. For her, writing was a pleasure, as it was the
satisfaction of a need. As her works were no effort to her, they left no
trace in her memory. She had not intended to write them, and, when once
written, she forgot them.
"_Consuelo and La Comtesse de Rudolstadt_, what are these books?" she
asks. "Did I write them? I do not remember a single word of them."
Her novels were like fruit, which, when ripe, fell away from her. George
Sand always returned to the celebration of certain great themes which
are the eternal subjects of all poetry, subjects such as love and
nature, and sentiments like enthusiasm and pity. The very language
completes the illusion. The choice of words was often far from perfect,
as George Sand's vocabulary was often uncertain, and her expression
lacked precision and relief. But she had the gift of imagery, and her
images were always delightfully fresh. She never lost that rare faculty
which she possessed of being surprised at things, so that she looked at
everything with youthful eyes. There is a certain movement which carries
the reader on, and a rhythm that is soothing. She develops the French
phrase slowly perhaps, but without any confusion. Her language is like
those rivers which flow along full and limpid, between flowery banks
and oases of verdure, rivers by the side of which the traveller loves to
linger and to lose himself in dreams.
The share which belongs to George Sand in the history of the French
novel is that of having impregnated the novel with the poetry in her
own soul. She gave to the novel a breadth and a range which it had never
hitherto had. She celebrated the hymn of Nature, of love and of goodness
in it. She revealed to us the country and the peasants of France. She
gave satisfaction to the romantic tendency which is in every one of us,
to a more or less degree.
All this is more even than is needed to ensure her fame. She denied ever
having written for posterity, and she predicted that in fifty years she
would be forgotten. It may be that there has been for her, as there is
for every illustrious author who dies, a time of test and a period of
neglect. The triumph of naturalism, by influencing taste for a time, may
have stopped our reading George Sand. At present we are just as tired
of documentary literature as we are disgusted with brutal literature. We
are gradually coming back to a better comprehension of what there is of
"truth" in George Sand's conception of the novel. This may be summed up
in a few words--to charm, to touch and to console. Those of us who know
something of life may perhaps wonder whether to console may not be the
final aim of literature. George Sand's literary ideal may be read in the
following words, which she wrote to Flaubert:
"You make the people who read your books still sadder than they were
before. I want to make them less unhappy." She tried to do this, and she
often succeeded in her attempt. What greater praise can we give to her
than that? And how can we help adding a little gratitude and affection
to our admiration for the woman who was the good fairy of the
contemporary novel?
THE END