real self
than into any other of her books--of herself, that is, and her state of
mind at the dawn of a period of moral disturbance and revolt. All must
continue to recognize there an extraordinary exhibition of poetical
power and musical style. As a work of art George Sand has herself
pronounced it absurd, yet she always cherished for it a special
predilection, and, as will be seen, took the trouble to rewrite it some
years later, when in a happier and healthier frame of mind than that
which inspired this unique and most characteristic composition.

The note of despair struck in _Lelia_, the depth of bitter feeling, the
capacity for mental and moral speculation and suffering it seemed to
disclose, astounded many of her familiar acquaintance. "_Lelia_ is a
fancy-type," so writes to the author her friend and neighbor in Berry,
Jules Neraud, an ardent naturalist, whose botanical and entomological
pursuits she had often shared: "it is not like you--you who are merry,
dance the _bourree_, appreciate lepidoptera, do not despise puns, who
are not a bad needlewoman, and make very good preserves. Is it possible
you should have thought so much, felt so much, without anyone having any
idea of it?"

_Lelia_ was certainly the expression of a new phase in her mind's
history, a moral crisis she could not escape, which was all the more
severe for her having, as she remarks, reached her thirtieth year
without having opened her eyes to the realities of life. Till the time
of her coming to Paris, for very dearth of outward impressions, she had
lived chiefly in dreams, the life of all others most favorable to the
prolongation of ignorance and credulity. The liberty and activity she
had enjoyed for the last two years were fatal to Utopian theories.

It was not only the bitterness that springs from disenchantment in
individuals, the sense of the miserable insufficiency of human love to
satisfy her spiritual aspirations producing "that widely concluding
unbelief which," as her sister in greatness has said, "we call knowledge
of the world, but which is really disappointment in you and in me."
George Sand was one to whom scepticism was intolerable. Pessimistic
doctrines were fatal to her mind's equilibrium, and private experience
and outward intellectual influences were driving her to distrust all
objects of her previous worship, human and divine. The moment was one
when the most fundamental social and religious principles were being
calle