or of art it may assume, she listened with
the whole force of her ardent genius. The faculty of instantaneously
recognizing Beauty may perhaps be the "second sight," of which all
nations have acknowledged the existence in highly gifted women. It is a
kind of magical gaze which causes the bark, the mask, the gross envelope
of form, to fall off; so that the invisible essence, the soul which is
incarnated within, may be clearly contemplated; so that the ideal which
the poet or artist may have vivified under the torrent of notes, the
passionate veil of coloring, the cold chiseling of marble, or the
mysterious rhythms of strophes, may be fully discerned. This faculty is
much rarer than is generally supposed. It is usually felt but vaguely,
yet--in its highest manifestations, it reveals itself as a "divining
oracle," knowing the Past and prophesying the Future. It is a power
which exempts the blessed organization which it illumes, from the
bearing of the heavy burden of technicalities, with which the merely
scientific drag on toward that mystic region of inner life, which the
gifted attain with a single bound. It is a faculty which springs less
from an acquaintance with the sciences, than from a familiarity with
nature.

The fascination and value of a country life consist in the long
tete-a-tete with nature. The words of revelation hidden under the
infinite harmonies of form, of sounds, of lights and shadows, of tones
and warblings, of terror and delight, may best be caught in these
long solitary interviews. Such infinite variety may appear crushing or
distracting on a first view, but if faced with a courage that no mystery
can appal, if sounded with a resolution that no length of time can
abate, may give the clue to analogies, conformities, relations between
our senses and our sentiments, and aid us in tracing the hidden
links which bind apparent dissimilarities, identical oppositions and
equivalent antitheses, and teach us the secrets of the chasms separating
with narrow but impassable space, that which is destined to approach
forever, yet never mingle; to resemble ever, yet never blend. To have
awakened early, as did Madame Sand, to the dim whispering with which
nature initiates her chosen to her mystic rites, is a necessary appanage
of the poet. To have learned from her to penetrate the dreams of man
when he, in his turn, creates, and uses in his works the tones, the
warblings, the terrors, the delights, requires a still