longer heard,
so that we can listen to the voice of things and examine the lesson
of life, that time when our reason makes us more indulgent, when the
sadness of earthly separations is softened by the thought that we shall
soon go ourselves to join those who have left us. We then begin to have
a foretaste of the calmness of that Great Sleep which is to console us
at the end of all our sufferings and grief. George Sand was fully aware
of the change that had taken place within her. She said, several
times over, that the age of impersonality had arrived for her. She was
delighted at having escaped from herself and at being free from egoism.
From henceforth she could give herself up to the sentiments which, in
pedantic and barbarous jargon, are called altruistic sentiments. By this
we mean motherly and grandmotherly affection, devotion to her family,
and enthusiasm for all that is beautiful and noble. She was delighted
when she was told of a generous deed, and charmed by a book in which she
discovered talent. It seemed to her as though she were in some way joint
author of it.

"My heart goes out to all that I see dawning or growing . . ." she
wrote, at this time. "When we see or read anything beautiful, does it
not seem as though it belongs to us in a way, that it is neither
yours nor mine, but that it belongs to all who drink from it and are
strengthened by it?"(50)

(50) _Correspondance:_ To Octave Feuillet, February 27, 1859.

This is a noble sentiment, and less rare than is generally believed.
The public little thinks that it is one of the great joys of the
writer, when he has reached a certain age, to admire the works of his
fellow-writers. George Sand encouraged her young _confreres_, Dumas
_fils_, Feuillet and Flaubert, at the beginning of their career, and
helped them with her advice.

We have plenty of information about her at this epoch. Her intimate
friends, inquisitive people and persons passing through Paris,
have described their visits to her over and over again. We have the
impressions noted down by the Goncourt brothers in their _Journal_. We
all know how much to trust to this diary. Whenever the Goncourts give
us an idea, an opinion, or a doctrine, it is as well to be wary in
accepting it. They were not very intelligent. I do not wish, in saying
this, to detract from them, but merely to define them. On the other
hand, what they saw, they saw thoroughly, and they noted the general
look, the attitu