lor, he might work as
professional people work, but his marriage would strongly accentuate the
amateur character of his position. It is possible that if his labors had
won great fame the lady might bear the separation more easily, for
ladies always take a noble pride in the celebrity of their husbands; but
the best and worthiest intellectual labor often brings no fame whatever,
and notoriety is a mere accident of some departments of the intellectual
life, and not its ultimate object.

George Sand, in her admirable novel "Valvedre," has depicted a situation
of this kind with the most careful delicacy of touch. Valvedre was a man
of science, who attempted to continue the labors of his intellectual
life after marriage had united him to a lady incapable of sharing them.
The reader pities both, and sympathizes with both. It is hard, on the
one hand, that a man endowed by nature with great talents for scientific
work should not go on with a career already gloriously begun; and yet,
on the other hand, a woman who is so frequently abandoned for science
may blamelessly feel some jealousy of science.

Valvedre, in narrating the story of his unhappy wedded life, said that
Alida wished to have at her orders a perfect gentleman to accompany
her, but that he felt in himself a more serious ambition. He had not
aimed at fame, but he had thought it possible to become a useful
servant, bringing his share of patient and courageous seekings to the
edifice of the sciences. He had hoped that Alida would understand this.
"'There is time enough for everything,' she said, still retaining him in
the useless wandering life that she had chosen. 'Perhaps,' he answered,
'but on condition that I lose no more of it; and it is not in this
wandering life, cut to pieces by a thousand unforeseen interruptions,
that I can make the hours yield their profit.'

"'Ah! we come to the point!' exclaimed Alida impetuously. 'You wish to
leave me, and to travel alone in impossible regions.'

"'No, I will work near you and abandon certain observations which it
would be necessary to make at too great a distance, but you also will
sacrifice something: we will not see so many idle people, we will settle
somewhere for a fixed time. It shall be where you will, and if the place
does not suit you, we will try another; but from time to time you will
permit me a phase of sedentary work.'

"'Yes, yes, you want to live for yourself alone; you have lived enough
for me. I un