and going as it does according to the bar.

"The willows of the islets are always being covered and uncovered," she
writes; "it all looks very cold and sad."(52)

(52) _Correspondance:_ To Maurice Sand, August 10, 1866.

She was not really duped, though, by her own explanation. She knew
perfectly well that what makes a house sad or gay, warm or icy-cold is
not the outlook on to the surrounding country, but the soul of those who
inhabit it and who have fashioned it in their own image. She had just
been staying in the house of the misanthropist.

When Moliere put the misanthropist on the stage with his
wretched-looking face, he gave him some of the features which remind
us so strongly of Flaubert. The most ordinary and everyday events were
always enough to put Alceste into a rage. It was just the same with
Flaubert. Everyday things which we are philosophical enough to accept
took his breath away. He was angry, and he wanted to be angry. He was
irritated with every one and with everything, and he cultivated this
irritation. He kept himself in a continual state of exasperation,
and this was his normal state. In his letters he described himself as
"worried with life," "disgusted with everything," "always agitated and
always indignant." He spells _hhhindignant_ with several h's. He signs
his letters, "The Reverend Father Cruchard of the Barnabite Order,
director of the Ladies of Disenchantment." Added to all this, although
there may have been a certain amount of pose in his attitude, he was
sincere. He "roared" in his own study, when he was quite alone and
there was no one to be affected by his roaring. He was organized in a
remarkable way for suffering. He was both romantic and realistic, a keen
observer and an imaginative man. He borrowed some of the most pitiful
traits from reality, and recomposed them into a regular nightmare. We
agree with Flaubert that injustice and nonsense do exist in life. But he
gives us Nonsense itself, the seven-headed and ten-horned beast of the
Apocalypse. He sees this beast everywhere, it haunts him and blocks up
every avenue for him, so that he cannot see the sublime beauties of the
creation nor the splendour of human intelligence.

In reply to all his wild harangues, George Sand gives wise answers,
smiling as she gives them, and using her common sense with which to
protect herself against the trickery of words. What has he to complain
of, this grown-up child who is too naive and who