That desire to depict things as they are, the adventures of life as they present themselves to the eye, is not well thought out, in my opinion.  Depict inert things as a realist, as a poet, it’s all the same to me, but, when one touches on the emotions of the human heart, it is another thing.  You cannot abstract yourself from this contemplation; for man, that is yourself, and men, that is the reader.  Whatever you do, your tale is a conversation between you and the reader.  If you show him the evil coldly, without ever showing him the good he is angry.  He wonders if it is he that is bad, or if it is you.  You work, however, to rouse him and to interest him; you will never succeed if you are not roused yourself, or if you hide it so well that he thinks you indifferent.  He is right:  supreme impartiality is an anti-human thing, and a novel ought to be human above everything.  If it is not, the public is not pleased in its being well written, well composed and conscientious in every detail.  The essential quality is not there:  interest.  The reader breaks away likewise from a book where all the characters are good without distinctions and without weaknesses; he sees clearly that that is not human either.  I believe that art, this special art of narration, is only worth while through the opposition of characters; but, in their struggle, I prefer to see the right prevail.  Let events overwhelm the honest men, I agree to that, but let him not be soiled or belittled by them, and let him go to the stake feeling that he is happier than his executioners.

15th January, 1876

It is three days since I wrote this letter, and every day I have been on the point of throwing it into the fire; for it is long and diffuse and probably useless.  Natures opposed on certain points understand each other with difficulty, and I am afraid that you will not understand me any better today than formerly.  However, I am sending you this scrawl so that you can see that I am occupied with you almost as much as with myself.

You must have success after that bad luck which has troubled you deeply.  I tell you wherein lie the certain conditions for your success.  Keep your cult for form; but pay more attention to the substance.  Do not take true virtue for a commonplace in literature.  Give it its representative, make honest and strong men pass among the fools and the imbeciles that you love to ridicule.  Show what is solid at the bottom of these intellectual abortions; in short, abandon the convention of the realist and return to the time reality, which is a mingling of the beautiful and the ugly, the dull and the brilliant, but in which the desire of good finds its place and its occupation all the same.

I embrace you for all of us.

G. Sand

CCCIII.  TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Nohant, 6th March, 1876

I am writing to you in a hurry this morning because I have just received news from M. Perrin of the first performance of the revival of the Mariage de Victorine, a play of mine, at the Theatre Francais.