s,
writing for money! She has genius, and a manly grasp of mind,
but not a manly heart! Will there never be a being to combine
a mail's mind and woman's heart, and who yet finds life too
rich to weep over? Never?
'When I read in _Leone Lioni_ the account of the jeweller's
daughter's life with her mother, passed in dress and in
learning to be looked at when dressed, _avec un front
impassible_, it reminded me exceedingly of ----, and her
mother. What a heroine she would be for Sand! She has the same
fearless softness with Juliet, and a sportive _naivete_, a
mixture of bird and kitten, unknown to the dupe of Lioni.
'If I were a man, and wished a wife, as many do, merely as an
ornament, or silken toy, I would take ---- as soon as any I
know. Her fantastic, impassioned, and mutable nature would
yield an inexhaustible amusement. She is capable of the most
romantic actions;--wild as the falcon, and voluptuous as the
tuberose,--yet she has not in her the elements of romance,
like a deeper and less susceptible nature. My cold and
reasoning E., with her one love lying, perhaps, never to be
unfolded, beneath such sheaths of pride and reserve, would
make a far better heroine.
'Both these characters are natural, while S. and T. are
_naturally factitious_, because so imitative, and her mother
differs from Juliet and her mother, by the impulse a single
strong character gave them. Even at this distance of time,
there is a slight but perceptible taste of iron in the water.
'George Sand disappoints me, as almost all beings have,
especially since I have been brought close to her person
by the _Lettres d'un Voyageur_. Her remarks on Lavater seem
really shallow, and hasty, _a la mode du genre femenin_. No
self-ruling Aspasia she, but a frail woman mourning over a
lot. Any peculiarity in her destiny seems accidental. She is
forced to this and that, to earn her bread forsooth!
'Yet her style,--with what a deeply smouldering fire it
burns!--not vehement, but intense, like Jean Jacques.'
ALFRED DE VIGNY.
'_Sept._, 1839.
'"La harpe tremble encore, et la flute soupire."
'Sometimes we doubt this, and think the music has finally
ceased, so sultry still lies the air around us, or only
disturbed by the fife and drum of talent, calling to the
parade-ground o
|