and sometimes even vicious and criminal. How is it to
be expected that the bad, rich man will take pity on the sorrows of
the poor man, if this poor man is always presented to him as an escaped
convict or a night loafer? It is very evident that the people, as
presented to us in the _Mysteres de Paris_, are not particularly
congenial to us, and we should have no wish to make the acquaintance of
the "Chourineur." In order to bring about conversions, George Sand has
more faith in gentle, agreeable people, and, in conclusion, she tells
us: "We believe that the mission of art is a mission of sentiment and
of love, and that the novel of to-day ought to take the place of the
parable and the apologue of more primitive times." The object of the
artist, she tells us, "is to make people appreciate what he presents to
them." With that end in view, he has a right to embellish his subjects
a little. "Art," we are told, "is not a study of positive reality; it is
the seeking for ideal truth." Such is the point of view of the author of
_La Mare au Diable_, which we are invited to consider as a parable and
an apologue.

The parable is clear enough, and the apologue is eloquent. The novel
commences with that fine picture of the ploughing of the fields, so rich
in description and so broadly treated that there seems to be nothing in
French literature to compare with it except the episode of the Labourers
in _Jocelyn_. When _Jocelyn_ was published, George Sand was severe in
her criticism of it, treating it as poor work, false in sentiment and
careless in style. "In the midst of all this, though," she adds, "there
are certain pages and chapters such as do not exist in any language,
pages that I read seven times over, crying all the time like a donkey."
I fancy that she must have cried over the episode of the _Labourers_.
Whether she remembered it or not when writing her own book little
matters. My only reason for mentioning it is to point out the affinity
of genius between Lamartine and George Sand, both of them so admirable
in imagining idylls and in throwing the colours of their idyllic
imagination on to reality.

I have ventured, to analyze the _Comtesse de Rudolstadt_ and even
_Consuelo_, but I shall not be guilty of the bad taste of telling the
story of _La Mare au Diable_, as all the people of that neighbourhood
are well known to us, and have been our friends for a long time. We are
all acquainted with Germain, the clever farm-labourer