but the republic of art and letters, to which by
nature and inclination she emphatically belonged, was a land of promise
first opened up to her now. She was eager and impatient to
deprovincialize herself.

In the art galleries of the Louvre, at the theatre and the opera, in the
daily interchange of ideas on all kinds of topics with her little circle
of intelligent acquaintance, her mind grew richer by a thousand new
impressions and enjoyments, and rapidly took fresh strength together
with fresh knowledge. The heavy practical obstacles that interfere with
such self-education on the part of one of her sex were seriously
aggravated in her case by her narrow income. How she surmounted them is
well known; assuming on occasion a disguise which, imposing on all but
the initiated, enabled her everywhere to pass for a collegian of
sixteen, and thus to go out on foot in all weathers, at all hours, alone
if necessary, unmolested and unobserved, in theatre or restaurant,
boulevard or reading-room. In defense of her adoption of this strange
measure, she pleads energetically the perishable nature of feminine
attire in her day,--a day before double-soles or ulsters formed part of
a lady's wardrobe,--its incompatibility with the incessant going to and
fro which her busy life required, the exclusion of her sex from the best
part of a Paris theatre, and so forth; the ineffable superiority of a
costume which, economy and comfort apart, secured her equal independence
with her men competitors in the race, and identical advantages as to the
rapid extension of her field of observation. The practice, though never
carried on by her to such an extent as very commonly asserted, was one
to which she did not hesitate to resort now and then in later years, as
a mere measure of convenience--a measure the world will only tolerate in
the Rosalinds and Violas of the stage. The career of George Sand was,
like her nature, entirely exceptional, and any attempt to judge it in
any other light lands us in hopeless moral contradictions. She had
extraordinary incentives to prompt her to extraordinary actions, which
may be condemned or excused, but which there could be no greater
mistake than to impute to ordinary vulgar motives. It must also be
remembered that fifty years ago, the female art student had no
recognized existence. She was shut out from that modicum of freedom and
of practical advantages it were arbitrary to deny, and which may now be
enjoyed by an