tive benevolence which Mrs. Sand adopts, let us try and
think there is some hope for our fathers (who were nearer brutality than
ourselves, according to the Sandean creed), or else there is a very poor
chance for us, who, great philosophers as we are, are yet, alas! far
removed from that angelic consummation which all must wish for so
devoutly. She cannot say--is it not extraordinary?--how many centuries
have been necessary before man could pass from the brutal state to his
present condition, or how many ages will be required ere we may pass
from the state of man to the state of angels? What the deuce is the use
of chronology or philosophy? We were beasts, and we can't tell when our
tails dropped off: we shall be angels; but when our wings are to begin
to sprout, who knows? In the meantime, O man of genius, follow our
counsel: lead an easy life, don't stick at trifles; never mind about
DUTY, it is only made for slaves; if the world reproach you, reproach
the world in return, you have a good loud tongue in your head: if your
straight-laced morals injure your mental respiration, fling off the
old-fashioned stays, and leave your free limbs to rise and fall as
Nature pleases; and when you have grown pretty sick of your liberty, and
yet unfit to return to restraint, curse the world, and scorn it, and be
miserable, like my Lord Byron and other philosophers of his kidney; or
else mount a step higher, and, with conceit still more monstrous, and
mental vision still more wretchedly debauched and weak, begin suddenly
to find yourself afflicted with a maudlin compassion for the human race,
and a desire to set them right after your own fashion. There is the
quarrelsome stage of drunkenness, when a man can as yet walk and
speak, when he can call names, and fling plates and wine-glasses at his
neighbor's head with a pretty good aim; after this comes the pathetic
stage, when the patient becomes wondrous philanthropic, and weeps
wildly, as he lies in the gutter, and fancies he is at home in
bed--where he ought to be; but this is an allegory.

I don't wish to carry this any farther, or to say a word in defence
of the doctrine which Mrs. Dudevant has found "incomplete";--here, at
least, is not the place for discussing its merits, any more than Mrs.
Sand's book was the place for exposing, forsooth, its errors: our
business is only with the day and the new novels, and the clever or
silly people who write them. Oh! if they but knew their plac