I
It is the great interest of such an episode that, apart from its proportionate place in the unfolding of a personal life it has a wonderful deal to say on the relation between experience and art at large. It constitutes an eminent12 special case, in which the workings of that relation are more or less uncovered; a case too of which one of the most striking notes is that we are in possession of it almost exclusively by the act of one of the persons concerned. Madame Sand at least, as we see to-day, was eager to leave nothing undone13 that could make us further acquainted than we were before with one of the liveliest chapters of her personal history. We cannot, doubtless, be sure that her conscious purpose in the production of “Elle et Lui” was to show us the process by which private ecstasies14 and pains find themselves transmuted15 in the artist’s workshop into promising16 literary material—any more than we can be certain of her motive17 for making toward the end of her life earnest and complete arrangements for the ultimate publication of the letters in which the passion is recorded and in which we can remount to the origin of the volume. If “Elle et Lui” had been the inevitable18 picture, postponed19 and retouched, of the great adventure of her youth, so the letters show us the crude primary stuff from which the moral detachment of the book was distilled20. Were they to be given to the world for the encouragement of the artist-nature—as a contribution to the view that no suffering is great enough, no emotion tragic21 enough to exclude the hope that such pangs22 may sooner or later be esthetically assimilated? Was the whole proceeding24, in intention, a frank plea for the intellectual and in some degree even the commercial profit, to a robust25 organism, of a store of erotic reminiscence? Whatever the reasons behind the matter, that is to a certain extent the moral of the strange story.
It may be objected that this moral is qualified26 to come home to us only when the relation between art and experience really proves a happier one than it may be held to have proved in the combination before us. The element in danger of being most absent from the process is the element of dignity, and its presence, so far as that may ever at all be hoped for in an appeal from a personal quarrel, is assured only in proportion as the esthetic23 event, standing27 on its own feet, represents a noble gift. It was vain, the objector may say, for our author to pretend to justify28 by so slight a performance as “Elle et Lui” that sacrifice of all delicacy29 which has culminated30 in this supreme31 surrender. “If you sacrifice all delicacy,” I hear such a critic contend, “show at least that you were right by giving us a masterpiece. The novel in question is no more a masterpiece,” I even hear him proceed, “than any other of the loose liquid lucid32 works of its author. By your supposition of a great intention you give much too fine an account on the one hand of a personal habit of incontinence and on the other of a literary habit of egotism. Madame Sand, in writing her tale and in publishing her love-letters, obeyed no prompting more exalted33 than that of exhibiting her personal (in which I include her verbal) facility, and of doing so at the cost of whatever other persons might be concerned; and you are therefore—and you might as well immediately confess it—thrown back for the element of interest on the attraction of her general eloquence35, the plausibility36 of her general manner and the great number of her particular confidences. You are thrown back on your mere curiosity or sympathy—thrown back from any question of service rendered to ‘art.’?” One might be thrown back doubtless still further even than such remarks would represent if one were not quite prepared with the confession37 they propose. It is only because such a figure is interesting—in every manifestation—that its course is marked for us by vivid footprints and possible lessons. And to enable us to find these it scarcely need have aimed after all so extravagantly38 high. George Sand lived her remarkable life and drove her perpetual pen, but the illustration that I began by speaking of is for ourselves to gather—if we can.
I remember hearing many years ago in Paris an anecdote39 for the truth of which I am far from vouching40, though it professed41 to come direct—an anecdote that has recurred43 to me more than once in turning over the revelations of the Revue de Paris, and without the need of the special reminder44 (in the shape of an allusion45 to her intimacy46 with the hero of the story) contained in those letters to Sainte-Beuve which are published in the number of November 15th. Prosper47 Mérimée was said to have related—in a reprehensible48 spirit—that during a term of association with the author of “Lélia” he once opened his eyes, in the raw winter dawn, to see his companion, in a dressing-gown, on her knees before the domestic hearth49, a candlestick beside her and a red madras round her head, making bravely, with her own hands, the fire that was to enable her to sit down betimes to urgent pen and paper. The story represents him as having felt that the spectacle chilled his ardour and tried his taste; her appearance was unfortunate, her occupation an inconsequence and her industry a reproof—the result of all of which was a lively irritation50 and an early rupture51. To the firm admirer of Madame Sand’s prose the little sketch52 has a very different value, for it presents her in an attitude which is the very key to the enigma53, the answer to most of the questions with which her character confronts us. She rose early because she was pressed to write, and she was pressed to write because she had the greatest instinct of expression ever conferred on a woman; a faculty54 that put a premium55 on all passion, on all pain, on all experience and all exposure, on the greatest variety of ties and the smallest reserve about them. The really interesting thing in these posthumous56 laideurs is the way the gift, the voice, carries its possessor through them and lifts her on the whole above them. It gave her, it may be confessed at the outset and in spite of all magnanimities in the use of it, an unfair advantage in every connection. So at least we must continue to feel till—for our appreciation57 of this particular one—we have Alfred de Musset’s share of the correspondence. For we shall have it at last, in whatever faded fury or beauty it may still possess—to that we may make up our minds. Let the galled58 jade59 wince60, it is only a question of time. The greatest of literary quarrels will in short, on the general ground, once more come up—the quarrel beside which all others are mild and arrangeable, the eternal dispute between the public and the private, between curiosity and delicacy.
This discussion is precisely61 all the sharper because it takes place for each of us within as well as without. When we wish to know at all we wish to know everything; yet there happen to be certain things of which no better description can be given than that they are simply none of our business. “What is then forsooth of our business?” the genuine analyst62 may always ask; and he may easily challenge us to produce any rule of general application by which we shall know when to push in and when to back out. “In the first place,” he may continue, “half the ‘interesting’ people in the world have at one time or another set themselves to drag us in with all their might; and what in the world in such a relation is the observer that he should absurdly pretend to be in more of a flutter than the object observed? The mannikin, in all schools, is at an early stage of study of the human form inexorably superseded63 by the man. Say that we are to give up the attempt to understand: it might certainly be better so, and there would be a delightful64 side to the new arrangement. But in the name of common-sense don’t say that the continuity of life is not to have some equivalent in the continuity of pursuit, the renewal of phenomena65 in the renewal of notation67. There is not a door you can lock here against the critic or the painter, not a cry you can raise or a long face you can pull at him, that are not quite arbitrary things. The only thing that makes the observer competent is that he is neither afraid nor ashamed; the only thing that makes him decent—just think!—is that he is not superficial.” All this is very well, but somehow we all equally feel that there is clean linen68 and soiled and that life would be intolerable without some acknowledgment even by the pushing of such a thing as forbidden ground. M. émile Zola, at the moment I write, gives to the world his reasons for rejoicing in the publication of the physiological69 enquête of Dr. Toulouse—a marvellous catalogue or handbook of M. Zola’s outward and inward parts, which leaves him not an inch of privacy, so to speak, to stand on, leaves him nothing about himself that is for himself, for his friends, his relatives, his intimates, his lovers, for discovery, for emulation70, for fond conjecture71 or flattering deluded72 envy. It is enough for M. Zola that everything is for the public and no sacrifice worth thinking of when it is a question of presenting to the open mouth of that apparently73 gorged74 but still gaping75 monster the smallest spoonful of truth. The truth, to his view, is never either ridiculous or unclean, and the way to a better life lies through telling it, so far as possible, about everything and about every one.
There would probably be no difficulty in agreeing to this if it didn’t seem on the part of the speaker the result of a rare confusion between give and take, between “truth” and information. The true thing that most matters to us is the true thing we have most use for, and there are surely many occasions on which the truest thing of all is the necessity of the mind, its simple necessity of feeling. Whether it feels in order to learn or learns in order to feel, the event is the same: the side on which it shall most feel will be the side to which it will most incline. If it feels more about a Zola functionally76 undeciphered it will be governed more by that particular truth than by the truth about his digestive idiosyncrasies, or even about his “olfactive perceptions” and his “arithmomania or impulse to count.” An affirmation of our “mere taste” may very supposedly be our individual contribution to the general clearing up. Nothing often is less superficial than to ignore and overlook, or more constructive77 (for living and feeling at all) than to want impatiently to choose. If we are aware that in the same way as about a Zola undeciphered we should have felt more about a George Sand unexposed, the true thing we have gained becomes a poor substitute for the one we have lost; and I scarce see what difference it makes that the view of the elder novelist appears in this matter quite to march with that of the younger. I hasten to add that as to being of course asked why in the world with such a leaning we have given time either to M. Zola’s physician or to Musset’s correspondent, this is only another illustration of the bewildering state of the subject.
When we meet on the broad highway the rueful denuded78 figure we need some presence of mind to decide whether to cut it dead or to lead it gently home, and meanwhile the fatal complication easily occurs. We have seen, in a flash of our own wit, and mystery has fled with a shriek79. These encounters are indeed accidents which may at any time take place, and the general guarantee in a noisy world lies, I judge, not so much in any hope of really averting80 them as in a regular organisation81 of the struggle. The reporter and the reported have duly and equally to understand that they carry their life in their hands. There are secrets for privacy and silence; let them only be cultivated on the part of the hunted creature with even half the method with which the love of sport—or call it the historic sense—is cultivated on the part of the investigator82. They have been left too much to the natural, the instinctive83 man; but they will be twice as effective after it begins to be observed that they may take their place among the triumphs of civilisation84. Then at last the game will be fair and the two forces face to face; it will be “pull devil, pull tailor,” and the hardest pull will doubtless provide the happiest result. Then the cunning of the inquirer, envenomed with resistance, will exceed in subtlety85 and ferocity anything we to-day conceive, and the pale forewarned victim, with every track covered, every paper burnt and every letter unanswered, will, in the tower of art, the invulnerable granite86, stand, without a sally, the siege of all the years.
II
It was not in the tower of art that George Sand ever shut herself up; but I come back to a point already made in saying that it is in the citadel87 of style that, notwithstanding rash sorties, she continues to hold out. The outline of the complicated story that was to cause so much ink to flow gives, even with the omission88 of a hundred features, a direct measure of the strain to which her astonishing faculty was exposed. In the summer of 1833, as a woman of nearly thirty, she encountered Alfred de Musset, who was six years her junior. In spite of their youth they were already somewhat bowed by the weight of a troubled past. Musset, at twenty-three, had that of his confirmed libertinism—so Madame Arvède Barine, who has had access to materials, tells us in the admirable short biography of the poet contributed to the rather markedly unequal but very interesting series of Hachette’s Grands écrivains Fran?ais. Madame Sand had a husband, a son and a daughter, and the impress of that succession of lovers—Jules Sandeau had been one, Prosper Mérimée another—to which she so freely alludes89 in the letters to Sainte-Beuve, a friend more disinterested90 than these and qualified to give much counsel in exchange for much confidence. It cannot be said that the situation of either of our young persons was of good omen66 for a happy relation, but they appear to have burnt their ships with much promptitude and a great blaze, and in the December of that year they started together for Italy. The following month saw them settled, on a frail91 basis, in Venice, where the elder companion remained till late in the summer of 1834 and where she wrote, in part, “Jacques” and the “Lettres d’un Voyageur,” as well as “André” and “Léone-Léoni,” and gathered the impressions to be embodied92 later in half-a-dozen stories with Italian titles—notably in the delightful “Consuelo.” The journey, the Italian climate, the Venetian winter at first agreed with neither of the friends; they were both taken ill—the young man very gravely—and after a stay of three months Musset returned, alone and much ravaged93, to Paris.
In the meantime a great deal had happened, for their union had been stormy and their security small. Madame Sand had nursed her companion in illness (a matter-of-course office, it must be owned) and her companion had railed at his nurse in health. A young physician, called in, had become a close friend of both parties, but more particularly a close friend of the lady, and it was to his tender care that on quitting the scene Musset solemnly committed her. She took up life with Pietro Pagello—the transition is startling—for the rest of her stay, and on her journey back to France he was no inconsiderable part of her luggage. He was simple, robust and kind—not a man of genius. He remained, however, but a short time in Paris; in the autumn of 1834 he returned to Italy, to live on till our own day but never again, so far as we know, to meet his illustrious mistress. Her intercourse94 with her poet was, in all its intensity95, one may almost say its ferocity, promptly96 renewed, and was sustained in that key for several months more. The effect of this strange and tormented97 passion on the mere student of its records is simply to make him ask himself what on earth is the matter with the subjects of it. Nothing is more easy than to say, as I have intimated, that it has no need of records and no need of students; but this leaves out of account the thick medium of genius in which it was foredoomed to disport98 itself. It was self-registering, as the phrase is, for the genius on both sides happened to be the genius of eloquence. It is all rapture99 and all rage and all literature. The “Lettres d’un Voyageur” spring from the thick of the fight; “La Confession d’un Enfant du Siècle” and “Les Nuits” are immediate34 echoes of the concert. The lovers are naked in the market-place and perform for the benefit of society. The matter with them, to the perception of the stupefied spectator, is that they entertained for each other every feeling in life but the feeling of respect. What the absence of that article may do for the passion of hate is apparently nothing to what it may do for the passion of love.
By our unhappy pair at any rate the luxury in question—the little luxury of plainer folk—was not to be purchased, and in the comedy of their despair and the tragedy of their recovery nothing is more striking than their convulsive effort either to reach up to it or to do without it. They would have given for it all else they possessed100, but they only meet in their struggle the inexorable never. They strain and pant and gasp101, they beat the air in vain for the cup of cold water of their hell. They missed it in a way for which none of their superiorities could make up. Their great affliction was that each found in the life of the other an armoury of weapons to wound. Young as they were, young as Musset was in particular, they appeared to have afforded each other in that direction the most extraordinary facilities; and nothing in the matter of the mutual103 consideration that failed them is more sad and strange than that even in later years, when their rage, very quickly, had cooled, they never arrived at simple silence. For Madame Sand, in her so much longer life, there was no hush104, no letting alone; though it would be difficult indeed to exaggerate the depth of relative indifference105 from which, a few years after Musset’s death, such a production as “Elle et Lui” could spring. Of course there had been floods of tenderness, of forgiveness; but those, for all their beauty of expression, are quite another matter. It is just the fact of our sense of the ugliness of so much of the episode that makes a wonder and a force of the fine style, all round, in which it is offered us. That force is in its turn a sort of clue to guide, or perhaps rather a sign to stay, our feet in paths after all not the most edifying106. It gives a degree of importance to the somewhat squalid and the somewhat ridiculous story, and, for the old George-Sandist at least, lends a positive spell to the smeared107 and yellowed paper, the blotted108 and faded ink. In this twilight109 of association we seem to find a reply to our own challenge and to be able to tell ourselves why we meddle110 with such old dead squabbles and waste our time with such grimacing111 ghosts. If we were superior to the weakness, moreover, how should we make our point (which we must really make at any cost) as to the so valuable vivid proof that a great talent is the best guarantee—that it may really carry off almost anything?
The rather sorry ghost that beckons112 us on furthest is the rare personality of Madame Sand. Under its influence—or that of old memories from which it is indistinguishable—we pick our steps among the laideurs aforesaid: the misery113, the levity114, the brevity of it all, the greatest ugliness in particular that this life shows us, the way the devotions and passions that we see heaven and earth called to witness are over before we can turn round. It may be said that, for what it was, the intercourse of these unfortunates surely lasted long enough; but the answer to that is that if it had only lasted longer it wouldn’t have been what it was. It was not only preceded and followed by intimacies115, on one side and the other, as unadorned by the stouter116 sincerity117, but was mixed up with them in a manner that would seem to us dreadful if it didn’t still more seem to us droll118, or rather perhaps if it didn’t refuse altogether to come home to us with the crudity119 of contemporary things. It is antediluvian120 history, a queer vanished world—another Venice from the actually, the deplorably familiarised, a Paris of greater bonhomie, an inconceivable impossible Nohant. This relegates121 it to an order agreeable somehow to the imagination of the fond quinquegenarian, the reader with a fund of reminiscence. The vanished world, the Venice unrestored, the Paris unextended, is a bribe122 to his judgment123; he has even a glance of complacency for the lady’s liberal foyer. Liszt, one lovely year at Nohant, “jouait du piano au rez-de-chaussée, et les rossignols, ivres de musique et de soleil, s’égosillaient avec rage sur les lilas environnants.” The beautiful manner confounds itself with the conditions in which it was exercised, the large liberty and variety overflow124 into admirable prose, and the whole thing makes a charming faded medium in which Chopin gives a hand to Consuelo and the small Fadette has her elbows on the table of Flaubert.
There is a terrible letter of the autumn of 1834 in which our heroine has recourse to Alfred Tattet on a dispute with the bewildered Pagello—a disagreeable matter that involved a question of money. “à Venise il comprenait,” she somewhere says, “à Paris il ne comprend plus.” It was a proof of remarkable intelligence that he did understand in Venice, where he had become a lover in the presence and with the exalted approval of an immediate predecessor—an alternate representative of the part, whose turn had now, on the removal to Paris, come round again and in whose resumption of office it was looked to him to concur125. This attachment—to Pagello—had lasted but a few months; yet already it was the prey126 of complication and change, and its sun appears to have set in no very graceful127 fashion. We are not here in truth among very graceful things, in spite of superhuman attitudes and great romantic flights. As to these forced notes Madame Arvède Barine judiciously128 says that the picture of them contained in the letters to which she had had access, and some of which are before us, “presents an example extraordinary and unmatched of what the romantic spirit could do with beings who had become its prey.” She adds that she regards the records in question, “in which we follow step by step the ravages129 of the monster,” as “one of the most precious psychological documents of the first half of the century.” That puts the story on its true footing, though we may regret that it should not divide these documentary honours more equally with some other story in which the monster has not quite so much the best of it. But it is the misfortune of the comparatively short and simple annals of conduct and character that they should ever seem to us somehow to cut less deep. Scarce—to quote again his best biographer—had Musset, at Venice, begun to recover from his illness than the two lovers were seized afresh by le vertige du sublime130 et de l’impossible. “Ils imaginèrent les déviations de sentiment les plus bizarres, et leur intérieur fut le théatre de scènes qui égalaient en étrangeté les fantaisies les plus audacieuses de la littérature contemporaine;” that is of the literature of their own day. The register of virtue131 contains no such lively items—save indeed in so far as these contortions132 and convulsions were a conscious tribute to virtue.
Ten weeks after Musset has left her in Venice his relinquished133 but not dissevered mistress writes to him in Paris: “God keep you, my friend, in your present disposition134 of heart and mind. Love is a temple built by the lover to an object more or less worthy135 of his worship, and what is grand in the thing is not so much the god as the altar. Why should you be afraid of the risk?”—of a new mistress she means. There would seem to be reasons enough why he should have been afraid, but nothing is more characteristic than her eagerness to push him into the arms of another woman—more characteristic either of her whole philosophy in these matters or of their tremendous, though somewhat conflicting, effort to be good. She is to be good by showing herself so superior to jealousy136 as to stir up in him a new appetite for a new object, and he is to be so by satisfying it to the full. It appears not to occur to either one that in such an arrangement his own honesty is rather sacrificed. Or is it indeed because he has scruples137—or even a sense of humour—that she insists with such ingenuity138 and such eloquence? “Let the idol139 stand long or let it soon break, you will in either case have built a beautiful shrine140. Your soul will have lived in it, have filled it with divine incense141, and a soul like yours must produce great works. The god will change perhaps, the temple will last as long as yourself.” “Perhaps,” under the circumstances, was charming. The letter goes on with the ample flow that was always at the author’s command—an ease of suggestion and generosity142, of beautiful melancholy143 acceptance, in which we foresee, on her own horizon, the dawn of new suns. Her simplifications are delightful—they remained so to the end; her touch is a wondrous144 sleight-of-hand. The whole of this letter in short is a splendid utterance145 and a masterpiece of the shade of sympathy, not perhaps the clearest, which consists of wishing another to feel as you feel yourself. To feel as George Sand felt, however, one had to be, like George Sand, of the true male inwardness; which poor Musset was far from being. This, we surmise146, was the case with most of her lovers, and the truth that makes the idea of her liaison147 with Mérimée, who was of a consistent virility148, sound almost like a union against nature. She repeats to her correspondent, on grounds admirably stated, the injunction that he is to give himself up, to let himself go, to take his chance. That he took it we all know—he followed her advice only too well. It is indeed not long before his manner of doing so draws from her a cry of distress149. “Ta conduite est déplorable, impossible. Mon Dieu, à quelle vie vais-je te laisser? l’ivresse, le vin, les filles, et encore et toujours!” But apprehensions150 were now too late; they would have been too late at the very earliest stage of this celebrated151 connection.
III
The great difficulty was that, though they were sublime, the couple were really not serious. But on the other hand if on a lady’s part in such a relation the want of sincerity or of constancy is a grave reproach the matter is a good deal modified when the lady, as I have mentioned, happens to be—I may not go so far as to say a gentleman. That George Sand just fell short of this character was the greatest difficulty of all; because if a woman, in a love affair, may be—for all she is to gain or to lose—what she likes, there is only one thing that, to carry it off with any degree of credit, a man may be. Madame Sand forgot this on the day she published “Elle et Lui”; she forgot it again more gravely when she bequeathed to the great snickering public these present shreds152 and relics153 of unutterably personal things. The aberration154 refers itself to the strange lapses155 of still other occasions—notably to the extraordinary absence of scruples with which she in the delightful “Histoire de ma Vie” gives away, as we say, the character of her remarkable mother. The picture is admirable for vividness, for breadth of touch; it would be perfect from any hand not a daughter’s, and we ask ourselves wonderingly how through all the years, to make her capable of it, a long perversion156 must have worked and the filial fibre—or rather the general flower of sensibility—have been battered157. Not this particular anomaly, however, but many another, yields to the reflection that as just after her death a very perceptive158 person who had known her well put it to the author of these remarks, she was a woman quite by accident. Her immense plausibility was almost the only sign of her sex. She needed always to prove that she had been in the right; as how indeed could a person fail to who, thanks to the special equipment I have named, might prove it so brilliantly? It is not too much to say of her gift of expression—and I have already in effect said so—that from beginning to end it floated her over the real as a high tide floats a ship over the bar. She was never left awkwardly straddling on the sandbank of fact.
For the rest, in any case, with her free experience and her free use of it, her literary style, her love of ideas and questions, of science and philosophy, her comradeship, her boundless159 tolerance160, her intellectual patience, her personal good-humour and perpetual tobacco (she smoked long before women at large felt the cruel obligation), with all these things and many I don’t mention she had more of the inward and outward of the other sex than of her own. She had above all the mark that, to speak at this time of day with a freedom for which her action in the matter of publicity161 gives us warrant, the history of her personal passions reads singularly like a chronicle of the ravages of some male celebrity162. Her relations with men closely resembled those relations with women that, from the age of Pericles or that of Petrarch, have been complacently163 commemorated164 as stages in the unfolding of the great statesman and the great poet. It is very much the same large list, the same story of free appropriation165 and consumption. She appeared in short to have lived through a succession of such ties exactly in the manner of a Goethe, a Byron or a Napoleon; and if millions of women, of course, of every condition, had had more lovers, it was probable that no woman independently so occupied and so diligent166 had had, as might be said, more unions. Her fashion was quite her own of extracting from this sort of experience all that it had to give her and being withal only the more just and bright and true, the more sane167 and superior, improved and improving. She strikes us as in the benignity168 of such an intercourse even more than maternal169: not so much the mere fond mother as the supersensuous grandmother of the wonderful affair. Is not that practically the character in which Thérèse Jacques studies to present herself to Laurent de Fauvel? the light in which “Lucrezia Floriani” (a memento170 of a friendship for Chopin, for Liszt) shows the heroine as affected171 toward Prince Karol and his friend? George Sand is too inveterately172 moral, too preoccupied173 with that need to do good which is in art often the enemy of doing well; but in all her work the story-part, as children call it, has the freshness and good faith of a monastic legend. It is just possible indeed that the moral idea was the real mainspring of her course—I mean a sense of the duty of avenging174 on the unscrupulous race of men their immemorial selfish success with the plastic race of women. Did she wish above all to turn the tables—to show how the sex that had always ground the other in the volitional175 mill was on occasion capable of being ground?
However this may be, nothing is more striking than the inward impunity176 with which she gave herself to conditions that are usually held to denote or to involve a state of demoralisation. This impunity (to speak only of consequences or features that concern us) was not, I admit, complete, but it was sufficiently177 so to warrant us in saying that no one was ever less demoralised. She presents a case prodigiously178 discouraging to the usual view—the view that there is no surrender to “unconsecrated” passion that we escape paying for in one way or another. It is frankly179 difficult to see where this eminent woman conspicuously180 paid. She positively181 got off from paying—and in a cloud of fluency182 and dignity, benevolence183, competence184, intelligence. She sacrificed, it is true, a handful of minor185 coin—suffered by failing wholly to grasp in her picture of life certain shades and certain delicacies186. What she paid was this irrecoverable loss of her touch for them. That is undoubtedly one of the reasons why to-day the picture in question has perceptibly faded, why there are persons who would perhaps even go so far as to say that it has really a comic side. She doesn’t know, according to such persons, her right hand from her left, the crooked187 from the straight and the clean from the unclean: it was a sense she lacked or a tact188 she had rubbed off, and her great work is by the fatal twist quite as lopsided a monument as the leaning tower of Pisa. Some readers may charge her with a graver confusion still—the incapacity to distinguish between fiction and fact, the truth straight from the well and the truth curling in steam from the kettle and preparing the comfortable tea. There is no word oftener on her pen, they will remind us, than the verb to “arrange.” She arranged constantly, she arranged beautifully; but from this point of view, that of a general suspicion of arrangements, she always proved too much. Turned over in the light of it the story of “Elle et Lui” for instance is an attempt to prove that the mistress of Laurent de Fauvel was little less than a prodigy189 of virtue. What is there not, the intemperate190 admirer may be challenged to tell us, an attempt to prove in “L’Histoire de ma Vie”?—a work from which we gather every delightful impression but the impression of an impeccable veracity191.
These reservations may, however, all be sufficiently just without affecting our author’s peculiar192 air of having eaten her cake and had it, been equally initiated193 in directions the most opposed. Of how much cake she partook the letters to Musset and Sainte-Beuve well show us, and yet they fall in at the same time, on other sides, with all that was noble in her mind, all that is beautiful in the books just mentioned and in the six volumes of the general “Correspondance: 1812-1876,” out of which Madame Sand comes so immensely to her advantage. She had, as liberty, all the adventures of which the dots are so put on the i’s by the documents lately published, and then she had, as law, as honour and serenity194, all her fine reflections on them and all her splendid busy literary use of them. Nothing perhaps gives more relief to her masculine stamp than the rare art and success with which she cultivated an equilibrium195. She made from beginning to end a masterly study of composure, absolutely refusing to be upset, closing her door at last against the very approach of irritation and surprise. She had arrived at her quiet elastic196 synthesis—a good-humour, an indulgence that were an armour102 of proof. The great felicity of all this was that it was neither indifference nor renunciation, but on the contrary an intense partaking; imagination, affection, sympathy and life, the way she had found for herself of living most and living longest. However well it all agreed with her happiness and her manners, it agrees still better with her style, as to which we come back with her to the sense that this was really her point d’appui or sustaining force. Most people have to say, especially about themselves, only what they can; but she said—and we nowhere see it better than in the letters to Musset—everything in life that she wanted. We can well imagine the effect of that consciousness on the nerves of this particular correspondent, his own poor gift of occasional song (to be so early spent) reduced to nothing by so unequalled a command of the last word. We feel it, I hasten to add, this last word, in all her letters: the occasion, no matter which, gathers it from her as the breeze gathers the scent197 from the garden. It is always the last word of sympathy and sense, and we meet it on every page of the voluminous “Correspondance.” These pages are not so “clever” as those, in the same order, of some other famous hands—the writer always denied, justly enough, that she had either wit or presence of mind—and they are not a product of high spirits or of a marked avidity for gossip. But they have admirable ease, breadth and generosity; they are the clear quiet overflow of a very full cup. They speak above all for the author’s great gift, her eye for the inward drama. Her hand is always on the fiddle-string, her ear is always at the heart. It was in the soul, in a word, that she saw the drama begin, and to the soul that, after whatever outward flourishes, she saw it confidently come back. She herself lived with all her perceptions and in all her chambers—not merely in the showroom of the shop. This brings us once more to the question of the instrument and the tone, and to our idea that the tone, when you are so lucky as to possess it, may be of itself a solution.
By a solution I mean a secret for saving not only your reputation but your life—that of your soul; an antidote198 to dangers which the unendowed can hope to escape by no process less uncomfortable or less inglorious than that of prudence199 and precautions. The unendowed must go round about, the others may go straight through the wood. Their weaknesses, those of the others, shall be as well redeemed200 as their books shall be well preserved; it may almost indeed be said that they are made wise in spite of themselves. If you have never in all your days had a weakness worth mentioning, you can be after all no more, at the very most, than large and cheerful and imperturbable201. All these things Madame Sand managed to be on just the terms she had found, as we see, most convenient. So much, I repeat, does there appear to be in a tone. But if the perfect possession of one made her, as it well might, an optimist202, the action of it is perhaps more consistently happy in her letters and her personal records than in her “creative” work. Her novels to-day have turned rather pale and faint, as if the image projected—not intense, not absolutely concrete—failed to reach completely the mind’s eye. And the odd point is that the wonderful charm of expression is not really a remedy for this lack of intensity, but rather an aggravation203 of it through a sort of suffusion204 of the whole thing by the voice and speech of the author. These things set the subject, whatever it be, afloat in the upper air, where it takes a happy bath of brightness and vagueness or swims like a soap-bubble kept up by blowing. This is no drawback when she is on the ground of her own life, to which she is tied by a certain number of tangible205 threads; but to embark206 on one of her confessed fictions is to have—after all that has come and gone, in our time, in the trick of persuasion—a little too much the feeling of going up in a balloon. We are borne by a fresh cool current and the car delightfully207 dangles208; but as we peep over the sides we see things—as we usually know them—at a dreadful drop beneath. Or perhaps a better way to express the sensation is to say what I have just been struck with in the re-perusal of “Elle et Lui”; namely that this book, like others by the same hand, affects the reader—and the impression is of the oddest—not as a first but as a second echo or edition of the immediate real, or in other words of the subject. The tale may in this particular be taken as typical of the author’s manner; beautifully told, but told, as if on a last remove from the facts, by some one repeating what he has read or what he has had from another and thereby209 inevitably210 becoming more general and superficial, missing or forgetting the “hard” parts and slurring211 them over and making them up. Of everything but feelings the presentation is dim. We recognise that we shall never know the original narrator and that the actual introducer is the only one we can deal with. But we sigh perhaps as we reflect that we may never confront her with her own informant.
To that, however, we must resign ourselves; for I remember in time that the volume from which I take occasion to speak with this levity is the work that I began by pronouncing a precious illustration. With the aid of the disclosures of the Revue de Paris it was, as I hinted, to show us that no mistakes and no pains are too great to be, in the air of art, triumphantly212 convertible213. Has it really performed this function? I thumb again my copy of the limp little novel and wonder what, alas214, I shall reply. The case is extreme, for it was the case of a suggestive experience particularly dire42, and the literary flower that has bloomed upon it is not quite the full-blown rose. “Oeuvre de rancune” Arvède Barine pronounces it, and if we take it as that we admit that the artist’s distinctness from her material was not ideally complete. Shall I not better the question by saying that it strikes me less as a work of rancour than—in a peculiar degree—as a work of egotism? It becomes in that light at any rate a sufficiently happy affirmation of the author’s infallible form. This form was never a more successful vehicle for the conveyance215 of sweet reasonableness. It is all superlatively calm and clear; there never was a kinder, balmier last word. Whatever the measure of justice of the particular representation, moreover, the picture has only to be put beside the recent documents, the “study,” as I may call them, to illustrate216 the general phenomenon. Even if “Elle et Lui” is not the full-blown rose we have enough here to place in due relief an irrepressible tendency to bloom. In fact I seem already to discern that tendency in the very midst of the storm; the “tone” in the letters too has its own way and performs on its own account—which is but another manner of saying that the literary instinct, in the worst shipwreck217, is never out of its depth. The worker observed at the fire by Mérimée could be drowned but in an ocean of ink. Is that a sufficient account of what I have called the laying bare of the relation between experience and art? With the two elements, the life and the genius, face to face—the smutches and quarrels at one end of the chain and the high luminosity at the other—does some essential link still appear to be missing? How do the graceless facts after all confound themselves with the beautiful spirit? They do so, incontestably, before our eyes, and the mystification remains218. We try to trace the process, but before we break down we had better perhaps hasten to grant that—so far at least as George Sand is concerned—some of its steps are impenetrable secrets of the grand manner.
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1
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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perusal
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| n.细读，熟读；目测 | |
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agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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renewal
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| adj.(契约)延期，续订，更新，复活，重来 | |
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8
revert
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| v.恢复，复归，回到 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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ecstasies
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| 狂喜( ecstasy的名词复数 )； 出神； 入迷； 迷幻药 | |
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transmuted
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| v.使变形，使变质，把…变成…( transmute的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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16
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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19
postponed
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| vt.& vi.延期，缓办，（使）延迟vt.把…放在次要地位；[语]把…放在后面（或句尾）vi.（疟疾等）延缓发作（或复发） | |
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distilled
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| adj.由蒸馏得来的v.蒸馏( distil的过去式和过去分词 )；从…提取精华 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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pangs
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| 突然的剧痛( pang的名词复数 )； 悲痛 | |
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esthetic
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| adj.美学的，审美的；悦目的，雅致的 | |
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proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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culminated
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| v.达到极点( culminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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lucid
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| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
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exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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plausibility
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| n. 似有道理, 能言善辩 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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extravagantly
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| adv.挥霍无度地 | |
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anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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40
vouching
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| n.（复核付款凭单等）核单v.保证( vouch的现在分词 )；担保；确定；确定地说 | |
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41
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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dire
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| adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的 | |
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recurred
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| 再发生，复发( recur的过去式和过去分词 )； 治愈 | |
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reminder
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| n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示 | |
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allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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46
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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prosper
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| v.成功，兴隆，昌盛；使成功，使昌隆，繁荣 | |
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reprehensible
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| adj.该受责备的 | |
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49
hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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51
rupture
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| n.破裂；(关系的)决裂；v.(使)破裂 | |
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sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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enigma
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| n.谜，谜一样的人或事 | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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premium
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| n.加付款；赠品；adj.高级的；售价高的 | |
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posthumous
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| adj.遗腹的；父亡后出生的；死后的，身后的 | |
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appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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58
galled
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| v.使…擦痛( gall的过去式和过去分词 )；擦伤；烦扰；侮辱 | |
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jade
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| n.玉石；碧玉；翡翠 | |
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wince
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| n.畏缩，退避，（因痛苦，苦恼等)面部肌肉抽动；v.畏缩，退缩，退避 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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analyst
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| n.分析家，化验员；心理分析学家 | |
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superseded
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| [医]被代替的，废弃的 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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omen
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| n.征兆，预兆；vt.预示 | |
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notation
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| n.记号法，表示法，注释；[计算机]记法 | |
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68
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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physiological
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| adj.生理学的，生理学上的 | |
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emulation
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| n.竞争；仿效 | |
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71
conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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72
deluded
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| v.欺骗，哄骗( delude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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gorged
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| v.（用食物把自己）塞饱，填饱( gorge的过去式和过去分词 )；作呕 | |
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gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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functionally
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| adv.机能上地，官能地 | |
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constructive
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| adj.建设的，建设性的 | |
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78
denuded
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| adj.[医]变光的，裸露的v.使赤裸( denude的过去式和过去分词 )；剥光覆盖物 | |
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shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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80
averting
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| 防止，避免( avert的现在分词 )； 转移 | |
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81
organisation
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| n.组织，安排，团体，有机休 | |
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82
investigator
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| n.研究者，调查者，审查者 | |
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83
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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84
civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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85
subtlety
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| n.微妙，敏锐，精巧；微妙之处，细微的区别 | |
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86
granite
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| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
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87
citadel
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| n.城堡；堡垒；避难所 | |
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88
omission
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| n.省略，删节；遗漏或省略的事物，冗长 | |
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89
alludes
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| 提及，暗指( allude的第三人称单数 ) | |
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90
disinterested
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| adj.不关心的，不感兴趣的 | |
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91
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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92
embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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93
ravaged
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| 毁坏( ravage的过去式和过去分词 )； 蹂躏； 劫掠； 抢劫 | |
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94
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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95
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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96
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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97
tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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98
disport
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| v.嬉戏，玩 | |
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99
rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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100
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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101
gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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102
armour
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| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
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103
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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104
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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105
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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106
edifying
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| adj.有教训意味的，教训性的，有益的v.开导，启发( edify的现在分词 ) | |
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107
smeared
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| 弄脏； 玷污； 涂抹； 擦上 | |
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108
blotted
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| 涂污( blot的过去式和过去分词 )； （用吸墨纸）吸干 | |
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109
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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110
meddle
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| v.干预，干涉，插手 | |
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111
grimacing
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| v.扮鬼相，做鬼脸( grimace的现在分词 ) | |
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112
beckons
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| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的第三人称单数 ) | |
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113
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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114
levity
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| n.轻率，轻浮，不稳定，多变 | |
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115
intimacies
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| 亲密( intimacy的名词复数 )； 密切； 亲昵的言行； 性行为 | |
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116
stouter
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| 粗壮的( stout的比较级 )； 结实的； 坚固的； 坚定的 | |
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117
sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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118
droll
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| adj.古怪的，好笑的 | |
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119
crudity
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| n.粗糙，生硬；adj.粗略的 | |
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120
antediluvian
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| adj.史前的，陈旧的 | |
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121
relegates
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| v.使降级( relegate的第三人称单数 )；使降职；转移；把…归类 | |
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122
bribe
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| n.贿赂；v.向…行贿，买通 | |
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123
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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124
overflow
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| v.(使)外溢，(使)溢出；溢出，流出，漫出 | |
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125
concur
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| v.同意，意见一致，互助，同时发生 | |
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126
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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127
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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128
judiciously
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| adv.明断地，明智而审慎地 | |
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129
ravages
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| 劫掠后的残迹，破坏的结果，毁坏后的残迹 | |
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130
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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131
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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132
contortions
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| n.扭歪，弯曲；扭曲，弄歪，歪曲( contortion的名词复数 ) | |
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133
relinquished
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| 交出，让给( relinquish的过去式和过去分词 )； 放弃 | |
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134
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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135
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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136
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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137
scruples
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| n.良心上的不安( scruple的名词复数 )；顾虑，顾忌v.感到于心不安，有顾忌( scruple的第三人称单数 ) | |
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138
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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139
idol
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| n.偶像，红人，宠儿 | |
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140
shrine
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| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
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141
incense
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| v.激怒；n.香，焚香时的烟，香气 | |
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142
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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143
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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144
wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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145
utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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146
surmise
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| v./n.猜想，推测 | |
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147
liaison
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| n.联系，（未婚男女间的）暖昧关系，私通 | |
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148
virility
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| n.雄劲，丈夫气 | |
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149
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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150
apprehensions
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| 疑惧 | |
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151
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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152
shreds
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| v.撕碎，切碎( shred的第三人称单数 )；用撕毁机撕毁（文件） | |
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153
relics
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| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
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154
aberration
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| n.离开正路，脱离常规，色差 | |
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155
lapses
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| n.失误，过失( lapse的名词复数 )；小毛病；行为失检；偏离正道v.退步( lapse的第三人称单数 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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156
perversion
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| n.曲解；堕落；反常 | |
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157
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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158
perceptive
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| adj.知觉的，有洞察力的，感知的 | |
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159
boundless
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| adj.无限的；无边无际的；巨大的 | |
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160
tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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161
publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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162
celebrity
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| n.名人，名流；著名，名声，名望 | |
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163
complacently
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| adv. 满足地, 自满地, 沾沾自喜地 | |
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164
commemorated
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| v.纪念，庆祝( commemorate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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165
appropriation
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| n.拨款，批准支出 | |
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166
diligent
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| adj.勤勉的，勤奋的 | |
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167
sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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168
benignity
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| n.仁慈 | |
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169
maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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170
memento
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| n.纪念品，令人回忆的东西 | |
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171
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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172
inveterately
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| adv.根深蒂固地，积习地 | |
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173
preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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174
avenging
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| adj.报仇的，复仇的v.为…复仇，报…之仇( avenge的现在分词 )；为…报复 | |
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175
volitional
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| adj.意志的，凭意志的，有意志的 | |
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176
impunity
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| n.(惩罚、损失、伤害等的)免除 | |
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177
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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178
prodigiously
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| adv.异常地，惊人地，巨大地 | |
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179
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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180
conspicuously
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| ad.明显地，惹人注目地 | |
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181
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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182
fluency
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| n.流畅，雄辩，善辩 | |
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183
benevolence
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| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
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184
competence
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| n.能力，胜任，称职 | |
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185
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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186
delicacies
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| n.棘手( delicacy的名词复数 )；精致；精美的食物；周到 | |
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187
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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188
tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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189
prodigy
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| n.惊人的事物，奇迹，神童，天才，预兆 | |
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190
intemperate
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| adj.无节制的，放纵的 | |
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191
veracity
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| n.诚实 | |
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192
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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193
initiated
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| n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始，创始，启蒙，介绍加入 | |
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194
serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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195
equilibrium
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| n.平衡，均衡，相称，均势，平静 | |
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196
elastic
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| n.橡皮圈，松紧带；adj.有弹性的；灵活的 | |
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197
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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198
antidote
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| n.解毒药，解毒剂 | |
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199
prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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200
redeemed
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| adj. 可赎回的，可救赎的 动词redeem的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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201
imperturbable
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| adj.镇静的 | |
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202
optimist
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| n.乐观的人，乐观主义者 | |
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203
aggravation
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| n.烦恼，恼火 | |
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204
suffusion
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| n.充满 | |
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205
tangible
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| adj.有形的，可触摸的，确凿的，实际的 | |
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206
embark
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| vi.乘船，着手，从事，上飞机 | |
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207
delightfully
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| 大喜，欣然 | |
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208
dangles
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| 悬吊着( dangle的第三人称单数 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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209
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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210
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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211
slurring
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| 含糊地说出( slur的现在分词 )； 含糊地发…的声； 侮辱； 连唱 | |
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212
triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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213
convertible
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| adj.可改变的，可交换，同意义的；n.有活动摺篷的汽车 | |
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214
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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215
conveyance
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| n.(不动产等的)转让，让与；转让证书；传送；运送；表达；（正）运输工具 | |
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216
illustrate
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| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
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217
shipwreck
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| n.船舶失事，海难 | |
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218
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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