her
turn, the "_mal du siecle_." Stenio reproaches her with only singing
grief and doubt. "How many, times," he says, "have you appeared to me
as typical of the indescribable suffering in which mankind is plunged
by the spirit of inquiry! With your beauty and your sadness, your
world-weariness and your scepticism, do you not personify the excess of
grief produced by the abuse of thought?" He then adds: "There is a great
deal of pride in this grief, Lelia!" It was undoubtedly a malady, for
Lelia had no reason to complain of life any more than her brothers in
despair. It is simply that the general conditions of life which all
people have to accept seem painful to them. When we are well the play of
our muscles is a joy to us, but when we are ill we feel the very weight
of the atmosphere, and our eyes are hurt by the pleasant daylight.

When _Lelia_ appeared George Sand's old friends were stupefied. "What,
in Heaven's name, is this?" wrote Jules Neraud, the _Malgache._ "Where
have you been in search of this? Why have you written such a book?
Where has it sprung from, and what is it for? . . . This woman is a
fantastical creature. She is not at all like you. You are lively and can
dance a jig; you can appreciate butterflies and you do not despise puns.
You sew and can make jam very well."(18)

(18) _Histoire de ma vie_.

It certainly was not her portrait. She was healthy and believed in life,
in the goodness of things and in the future of humanity, just as Victor
Hugo and Dumas _pere_, those other forces of Nature, did, at about the
same time. A soul foreign to her own had entered into her, and it was
the romantic soul. With the magnificent power of receptivity which she
possessed, George Sand welcomed all the winds which came to her from
the four quarters of romanticism. She sent them back with unheard-of
fulness, sonorous depth and wealth of orchestration. From that time
forth a woman's voice could be heard, added to all the masculine voices
which railed against life, and the woman's voice dominated them all!

In George Sand's psychological evolution, _Lelia_ is just this: the
beginning of the invasion of her soul by romanticism. It was a borrowed
individuality, undoubtedly, but it was not something to be put on and
off at will like a mask. It adhered to the skin. It was all very fine
for George Sand to say to Sainte-Beuve: "Do not confuse the man himself
with the suffering. . . . And do not believe in all my satan