In all of these early works are seen an
inventiveness, a lively _allure_, an exquisite style, a freshness
and brilliancy, _finesse_ and grace; but they show an undisciplined
talent, giving vent to feelings that her unbounded enthusiasm would
not allow to be checked--there is emotion, but no system.

In her second period, from about 1840 to 1848, her reflection and
emotion combined produced a system and theories. The higher problems
took stronger hold on her as she matured; philosophy and religious
science in their deeper phases excited her emotive faculties,
which threw out a mere echo of what she had heard and studied.
Her inspiration thus came from without, throwing out those endless
declamatory outbursts which we meet in _Consuelo_ and in _Comtesse de
Rudolstadt_. These theory-novels were soon followed by novels dealing
with social problems, now and then relieved by delightful idyllics
such as _La Mare au Diable_ and _Francois le Champi_. This third
tendency M. d'Haussonville considers the least successful.

After 1850 there appeared from her pen a series of historical novels,
especially fine in the portrayal of characters, variety of situations,
movement, and intrigues; these are free from all social theories;
in these, reverting to her first tendencies, she is at her best in
elegance and clearness, in analysis of characters. Thus does the work
of George Sand change from a personal lyricism, in which the emotions,
held in check during a solitary and dreamy youth, burst forth in
brilliant and passionate fiction, to a theoretical, systematic novel,
finally reverting to the first efforts, but tempered by experience and
age.

M. d'Haussonville says that in the strict sense of the word George
Sand had no doctrines, but possessed a powerful imagination that
manifested itself at various periods of her life. Whatever the
principles might have been at first, they were made concrete under
a sentiment with her, for her heart was her first inspiration,
her teacher in all things. The ideas are thus analyzed through her
sentiments under a threefold inspiration,--love, passion for humanity,
sentiment for Nature.

According to other novels, love is the unique affair of life; without
love we do not really live, before love enters life we do not live,
and after we cease to love there is no object in life. This love comes
directly from God, of whom George Sand had ideas peculiar to herself.
The majority of her characters have a s