and _Naples, March 17, 1847._--You wished to
hear of George Sand, or, as they say in Paris, "Madame Sand." I find
that all we had heard of her was true in the outline; I had supposed
it might be exaggerated. She had every reason to leave her husband,--a
stupid, brutal man, who insulted and neglected her. He afterwards gave
up their child to her for a sum of money. But the love for which she
left him lasted not well, and she has had a series of lovers, and I
am told has one now, with whom she lives on the footing of combined
means, independent friendship! But she takes rank in society like a
man, for the weight of her thoughts, and has just given her daughter
in marriage. Her son is a grown-up young man, an artist. Many women
visit her, and esteem it an honor. Even an American here, and with
the feelings of our country on such subjects, Mrs. ----, thinks of her
with high esteem. She has broken with La Mennais, of whom she was once
a disciple.

I observed to Dr. Francois, who is an intimate of hers, and loves and
admires her, that it did not seem a good sign that she breaks with her
friends. He said it was not so with her early friends; that she has
chosen to buy a chateau in the region where she passed her childhood,
and that the people there love and have always loved her dearly. She
is now at the chateau, and, I begin to fear, will not come to town
before I go. Since I came, I have read two charming stories recently
written by her. Another longer one she has just sold to _La Presse_
for fifteen thousand francs. She does not receive nearly as much
for her writings as Balzac, Dumas, or Sue. She has a much greater
influence than they, but a less circulation.

She stays at the chateau, because the poor people there were suffering
so much, and she could help them. She has subscribed _twenty thousand
francs_ for their relief, in the scarcity of the winter. It is a great
deal to earn by one's pen: a novel of several volumes sold for only
fifteen thousand francs, as I mentioned before. * * *

At last, however, she came; and I went to see her at her house,
Place d'Orleans. I found it a handsome modern residence. She had not
answered my letter, written about a week before, and I felt a little
anxious lest she should not receive me; for she is too much the mark
of impertinent curiosity, as well as too busy, to be easily accessible
to strangers. I am by no means timid, but I have suffered, for the
first time in France, some of