Your letter which I have just received gives added value to your article [Footnote:  Letter about Salammbo, January, 1863, Questions d’art et de litterature.] and goes on still further, and I do not know what to say to you unless it be that I quite frankly like you.

It was certainly not I who sent you in September, a little flower in an envelope.  But, strange to say, at the same time, I received in the same manner, a leaf of a tree.

As for your very cordial invitation, I am not answering yes or no, in true Norman fashion.  Perhaps some day this summer I shall surprise you.  For I have a great desire to see you and to talk with you.

It would be very delightful to have your portrait to hang on the wall in my study in the country where I often spend long months entirely alone.  Is the request indiscreet?  If not, a thousand thanks in advance.  Take them with the others which I reiterate.

II.  TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Paris, 15 March, 1864

Dear Flaubert,

I don’t know whether you lent me or gave me M. Taine’s beautiful book.  In the uncertainty I am returning it to you.  Here I have had only the time to read a part of it, and at Nohant, I shall have only the time to scribble for Buloz; but when I return, in two months, I shall ask you again for this admirable work of which the scope is so lofty, so noble.

I am sorry not to have said adieu to you; but as I return soon, I hope that you will not have forgotten me and that you will let me read something of your own also.

You were so good and so sympathetic to me at the first performance of Villemer that I no longer admire only your admirable talent, I love you with all my heart.

George Sand

III.  TO GEORGE SAND Paris, 1866

Why of course I am counting on your visit at my own house.  As for the hindrances which the fair sex can oppose to it, you will not notice them (be sure of it) any more than did the others.  My little stories of the heart or of the senses are not displayed on the counter.  But as it is far from my quarter to yours and as you might make a useless trip, when you arrive in Paris, give me a rendezvous.  And at that we shall make another to dine informally tete-a-tete.

I sent your affectionate little greeting to Bouilhet.

At the present time I am disheartened by the populace which rushes by under my windows in pursuit of the fatted calf.  And they say that intelligence is to be found in the street!

IV.  To M. Flobert (Justave) M. of Letters Boulevard du Temple, 42, Paris Paris, 10 May, 1866

[The postage stamp bears the mark Palaiseau 9 May, ’66.]