ertain
private house, and of very risky and unpleasant episodes. This is the
collaborator's share in the work. The risky parts are Sandeau's.

Such, then, is this hybrid composition. It was, in reality, the
monstrosity announced by George Sand.

It had a certain success, but the person who was most severe in her
judgment of it was Sophie-Victoire, George Sand's mother, who had very
prudish tastes in literature. This woman is perfectly delightful,
and every time we come across her it is a fresh joy. Her daughter was
obliged to make some excuse for herself, and this she did by stating
that the work was not entirely her own.

"I do not approve of a great deal of the nonsense," she writes, "and
I only let certain things pass to please my publisher, who wanted
something rather lively. . . . I do not like the risky parts
myself. . . ." Later on in the same letter, she adds: "There is nothing
of the kind in the book I am writing now, and I am using nothing of my
collaborator's in this, except his name."(15)

(15) _Correspondance_: To her mother, February 22, 1832.

This was true. Jules Sand had had his day, and the book of which she now
speaks was _Indiana_. She signed this "George Sand."

The unpublished correspondence with Emile Regnault, some fragments of
which we have just read, contains a most interesting letter concerning
the composition of _Indiana_. It is dated February 28, 1832. George Sand
first insists on the severity of the subject and on its resemblance to
life. "It is as simple, as natural and as positive as you could wish,"
she says. "It is neither romantic, mosaic, nor frantic. It is just
ordinary life of the most _bourgeois_ kind, but unfortunately this is
much more difficult than exaggerated literature. . . . There is not the
least word put in for nothing, not a single description, not a
vestige of poetry. There are no unexpected, extraordinary, or amazing
situations, but merely four volumes on four characters. With only just
these characters, that is, with hidden feelings, everyday thoughts,
with friendship, love, selfishness, devotion, self-respect, persistency,
melancholy, sorrow, ingratitude, disappointment, hope, and all the
mixed-up medley of the human mind, is it possible to write four volumes
which will not bore people? I am afraid of boring people, of boring them
as life itself does. And yet what is more interesting than the history
of the heart, when it is a true history? The main thing