George Sand deserves special mention for her science in the art of growing old.  It is not a science easy to master, and personally this is one of my reasons for admiring her.  She understood what a charm there is in that time of life when the voice of the passions is no longer heard, so that we can listen to the voice of things and examine the lesson of life, that time when our reason makes us more indulgent, when the sadness of earthly separations is softened by the thought that we shall soon go ourselves to join those who have left us.  We then begin to have a foretaste of the calmness of that Great Sleep which is to console us at the end of all our sufferings and grief.  George Sand was fully aware of the change that had taken place within her.  She said, several times over, that the age of impersonality had arrived for her.  She was delighted at having escaped from herself and at being free from egoism.  From henceforth she could give herself up to the sentiments which, in pedantic and barbarous jargon, are called altruistic sentiments.  By this we mean motherly and grandmotherly affection, devotion to her family, and enthusiasm for all that is beautiful and noble.  She was delighted when she was told of a generous deed, and charmed by a book in which she discovered talent.  It seemed to her as though she were in some way joint author of it.

“My heart goes out to all that I see dawning or growing . . .” she wrote, at this time.  “When we see or read anything beautiful, does it not seem as though it belongs to us in a way, that it is neither yours nor mine, but that it belongs to all who drink from it and are strengthened by it?"(50)

     (50) Correspondance: To Octave Feuillet, February 27, 1859.

This is a noble sentiment, and less rare than is generally believed.  The public little thinks that it is one of the great joys of the writer, when he has reached a certain age, to admire the works of his fellow-writers.  George Sand encouraged her young confreres, Dumas fils, Feuillet and Flaubert, at the beginning of their career, and helped them with her advice.

We have plenty of information about her at this epoch.  Her intimate friends, inquisitive people and persons passing through Paris, have described their visits to her over and over again.  We have the impressions noted down by the Goncourt brothers in their Journal.  We all know how much to trust to this diary.  Whenever the Goncourts give us an idea, an opinion, or a doctrine, it is as well to be wary in accepting it.  They were not very intelligent.  I do not wish, in saying this, to detract from them, but merely to define them.  On the other hand, what they saw, they saw thoroughly, and they noted the general look, the attitude or gesture with great care.

We give their impressions of George Sand.  In March, 1862, they went to call on her.  She was then living in Paris, in the Rue Racine.  They give an account of this visit in their diary.