As regards reading, I have just swallowed all the odious Joseph de Maistre.  They have saddled us enough with this gentleman!  And the modern socialists who have praised him beginning with the saint-simonians and ending with A. Comte.  France is drunk with authority, no matter what they say.  Here is a beautiful idea that I find in Raspail, the physicians ought to be magistrates, so they could force, etc.

Your romantic and liberal old dunce embraces you tenderly.

CCL.  TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Nohant, 5 February, 1873

I wrote to you yesterday to Croisset, Lina thinking that you had returned there.  I asked you the little favor which you have already rendered me, namely, to ask your brother to give his patronage to my friend Despruneaux in his suit which is going to be appealed.  My letter will probably be forwarded to you in Paris, and reach you as quickly as this one.  It is only a question of writing a line to your brother, if that does not bother you.

Pray, what is this obstinate cough?  There is only one remedy, a minimum dose, a half-centigram of acetate of morphine taken every evening after digesting your dinner, for a week at least.  I do nothing else and I always get over it, I cure all my family the same way, it is so easy to do and so quickly done!  At the end of two or three days one feels the good effect.  I am awaiting your cure with impatience, for your sake first, and second for myself, because you will come and because I am hungry and thirsty to see you.

Maurice is at a loss to know how to answer your question.  He has not made any mistake in his experiments, and knows indeed those that others make or could make; but he says that they vary infinitely and that each mistake is a special one for the conditions in which one works.  When you are here and he understands really what you want, he can answer you for everything that concerns the center of France, and the general geology of the planet, if there is any opportunity to generalize.  His reasoning has been this:  not to make innovations, but to push to its greatest development what exists, in making use always of the method established by experience.  Experience can never deceive, it may be incomplete, but never mendacious.  With this I embrace you, I summon you, I await you, I hope for you, but will not however torment you.

But we love you, that is certain; and we would like to infuse in you a little of our Berrichon patience about the things in this world which are not amusing, we know that very well!  But why are we in this world if it is not to learn patience.

Your obstinate troubadour who loves you.

G. Sand

CCLI.  TO GEORGE SAND Tuesday, March 12, 1873

Dear master,

If I am not at your house, it is the fault of the big Tourgueneff.  I was getting ready to go to Nohant, when he said to me:  “Wait, I’ll go with you the first of April.”  That is two weeks off.  I shall see him tomorrow at Madame Viardot’s and I shall beg him to go earlier, as I am beginning to be impatient.  I am feeling the need of seeing you, of embracing you, and of talking with you.  That is the truth.