Nothing shall prevent me from doing what I ought to and what I will do.  I am the daughter of my father, and I care not for prejudices when my heart enjoins justice and courage. [To her mother.  Nohant, October 25, 1835.]

   Opinion is a prostitute which must be sent about her business
   with kicks when one is in the right. [To her friend Adolphe
   Gueroult.  La Chatre, November 9, 1835.]

The materials made use of in the foregoing sketch of George Sand’s life up to 1836 consist to a very considerable extent of her own data, and in part even of her own words.  From this fact, however, it ought not to be inferred that her statements can always be safely accepted without previous examination, or at any time be taken au pied de la lettre.  Indeed, the writer of the Histoire de ma Vie reveals her character indirectly rather than directly, unawares rather than intentionally.  This so-called “history” of her life contains some truth, although not all the truth; but it contains it implicitly, not explicitly.  What strikes the observant reader of the four-volumed work most forcibly, is the attitude of serene self-admiration and self-satisfaction which the autobiographer maintains throughout.  She describes her nature as pre-eminently “confiding and tender,” and affirms that in spite of the great and many wrongs she was made to suffer, she never wronged anyone in all her life.  Hence the perfect tranquillity of conscience she always enjoyed.  Once or twice, it is true, she admits that she may not be an angel, and that she as well as her husband may have had faults.  Such humble words, however, ought not to be regarded as penitent confessions of a sinful heart, but as generous concessions of a charitable mind.  In short, a thorough belief in her own virtuousness and superior excellence was the key-note of her character.  The Pharisaical tendency to thank God for not having made her like other people pervades every page of her autobiography, of which Charles Mazade justly says that it is—­

   a kind of orgy of a personality intoxicated with itself, an
   abuse of intimate secrets in which she slashes her friends,
   her reminiscences, and—­truth.

George Sand declares again and again that she abstains from speaking of certain matters out of regard for the feelings or memories of other persons, whereas in reality she speaks recklessly of everybody as long as she can do so without compromising herself.  What virtuous motives can have prompted her to publish her mother’s shame?  What necessity was there to expatiate on her brother’s drunkenness?  And if she was the wronged and yet pitiful woman she pretended to be, why, instead of burying her husband’s, Musset’s, and others’ sins in silence, does she throw out against them those artful insinuations and mysterious hints which are worse than open accusations?  Probably her artistic instincts suggested that a dark background would set off more effectively her own