*

GEORGE SAND'S NEW DRAMA.--George Sand's _Claudie_ has had a brilliant
fortune at Paris, where it was first performed the second week in
January. It is a drama of peasant life, in three acts, in prose. Jules
Janin says of it: "The success of Claudie is a true, sincere, and
energetic success. It has impassioned the calmest souls; it has calmed
the most agitated. This poem is a veritable festival, full of the rustic
delights of the country, of the most honorable passions of the human
heart, of the noblest sentiments. Add to this, a charm altogether new, a
charm both inspired and inspiring, in the style, which is reason and
good sense in the most delicious costume. Neither effort nor study is
there, but only that simplicity so much sought for in the most precious
passages of _Daphnis and Chloe_ translated to the Marivaux by Amyot
himself. The piece was listened to with ravishment. There was universal
praise among the audience, an inexpressible abundance of tears, of
laughter, of gayety, of sighs, of words fitly spoken, of eloquent
silence." Of the plot we take the following account from an article by
Paul de Musset: From the beginning we feel the air of the country, the
harvest, and the sun of August. Farmer Fauveau is preparing to pay the
harvesters. His employer, Dame Rose, a young and pretty widow, has just
returned from the city, where she had been for a lawsuit. Fauveau, a
shrewd but good-natured man, skilfully calls her attention to the sad
and agitated air of his son, who is no doubt in love with some one, and
with whom can it be except his charming mistress? Dame Rose admits that
Sylvain Fauveau is a handsome fellow, and a good and intelligent
workman, who would manage affairs with discretion, but he would be
jealous of his wife. Jealousy, replies the old man, is a proof of love,
and so Dame Rose begins to cherish the idea that Sylvain is in love with
her. This is not true, but the old man has said it purposely. He
suspects Sylvain of being in love with Claudie, a simple laborer in the
harvest field, without a penny, and gaining her living, with no other
relative than a grandfather of eighty, who may any day become a charge
upon her little earnings. Claudie comes in from work with her
grandfather, and they ask for their pay, the harvest being finished, and
it being six leagues to their home. They are paid, and Sylvain takes
care that they shall receive more than his father intends, and that they
shall be invited