In her latest period, from 1860 to 1876, George Sand returned to her first lyrical manner, although with more reticence and a wider experience of life.  Of the very abundant fruitage of these last years, not many rank with the masterpieces of her earlier periods, although such novels as “Tamaris” (1862), “La Confession d’une Jeune Fille” (1865), and “Cadio,” seemed to her admirers to show no decline of force or fire.  Still finer, perhaps, were “Le Marquis de Villemer” (1861) and “Jean de la Roche” (1860).  Her latest production, which appeared after her death, was the “Contes d’une Grand’mere,” a collection full of humanity and beauty.  George Sand died at Nohant on the 8th of June, 1876.  She had great qualities of soul, and in spite of the naive irregularities of her conduct in early middle life, she cannot be regarded otherwise than as an excellent woman.  She was brave, courageous, heroically industrious, a loyal friend, a tender and wise mother.  Her principle fault has been wittily defined by Mr. Henry James, who has remarked that in affairs of the heart George Sand never “behaved like a gentleman.”

E. G.

PREFACE

When I wrote my novel Mauprat at Nohant—­in 1846, if I remember rightly—­I had just been suing for a separation.  Hitherto I had written much against the abuses of marriage, and perhaps, though insufficiently explaining my views, had induced a belief that I failed to appreciate its essence; but it was at this time that marriage itself stood before me in all the moral beauty of its principle.

Misfortune is not without its uses to the thoughtful mind.  The more clearly I had realized the pain and pity of having to break a sacred bond, the more profoundly I felt that where marriage is wanting, is in certain elements of happiness and justice of too lofty a nature to appeal to our actual society.  Nay, more; society strives to take from the sanctity of the institution by treating it as a contract of material interests, attacking it on all sides at once, by the spirit of its manners, by its prejudices, by its hypocritical incredulity.

While writing a novel as an occupation and distraction for my mind, I conceived the idea of portraying an exclusive and undying love, before, during, and after marriage.  Thus I drew the hero of my book proclaiming, at the age of eighty, his fidelity to the one woman he had ever loved.

The ideal of love is assuredly eternal fidelity.  Moral and religious laws have aimed at consecrating this ideal.  Material facts obscure it.  Civil laws are so framed as to make it impossible or illusory.  Here, however, is not the place to prove this.  Nor has Mauprat been burdened with a proof of the theory; only, the sentiment by which I was specially penetrated at the time of writing it is embodied in the words of Mauprat towards the end of the book:  “She was the only woman I loved in all my life; none other ever won a glance from me, or knew the pressure of my hand.”