expects too much? By
what extraordinary misfortune has he such an exceptionally unhappy lot?
He is fairly well off and he has great talent. How many people would
envy him! He complains of life, such as it is for every one, and of the
present conditions of life, which had never been better for any one at
any epoch. What is the use of getting irritated with life, since we do
not wish to die? Humanity seemed despicable to him, and he hated it.
Was he not a part of this humanity himself? Instead of cursing our
fellow-men for a whole crowd of imperfections inherent to their nature,
would it not be more just to pity them for such imperfections? As to
stupidity and nonsense, if he objected to them, it would be better to
pay no attention to them, instead of watching out for them all the time.
Beside all this, is there not more reason than we imagine for every one
of us to be indulgent towards the stupidity of other people?

"That poor stupidity of which we hear so much," exclaimed George Sand.
"I do not dislike it, as I look on it with maternal eyes." The human
race is absurd, undoubtedly, but we must own that we contribute
ourselves to this absurdity.

There is something morbid in Flaubert's case, and with equal clearness
of vision George Sand points out to him the cause of it and the remedy.
The morbidness is caused in the first place by his loneliness, and by
the fact that he has severed all bonds which united him to the rest
of the universe. Woe be to those who are alone! The remedy is the next
consideration. Is there not, somewhere in the world, a woman whom he
could love and who would make him suffer? Is there not a child somewhere
whose father he could imagine himself to be, and to whom he could devote
himself? Such is the law of life. Existence is intolerable to us as long
as we only ask for our own personal satisfaction, but it becomes dear to
us from the day when we make a present of it to another human being.

There was the same antagonism in their literary opinions. Flaubert
was an artist, the theorist of the doctrine of art for art, such
as Theophile Gautier, the Goncourt brothers and the Parnassians
comprehended it, at about the same epoch. It is singularly interesting
to hear him formulate each article of this doctrine, and to hear George
Sand's fervent protestations in reply. Flaubert considers that an author
should not put himself into his work, that he should not write his books
with his heart, and George Sa