constant lover is invariably pursued by the furies of remorse; the
brutal has always some mitigating influence in his career; the libertine
retains through many vicissitudes a seraphic love for some faithful
Solveig.

Humanity meant far more to her than art: she began her literary career
by describing facts as she knew them: critics drove her to examine their
causes, and so she gradually changed from the chronicler with strong
sympathies to the interpreter with a reasoned philosophy. She discovered
that a great deal of the suffering in this world is due not so much to
original sin, but to a kind of original stupidity, an unimaginative,
stubborn stupidity. People were dishonest because they believed,
wrongly, that dishonesty was somehow successful. They were cruel because
they supposed that repulsive exhibitions of power inspired a prolonged
fear. They were treacherous because they had never been taught the
greater strength of candour. George Sand tried to point out the
advantage of plain dealing, and the natural goodness of mankind
when uncorrupted by a false education. She loved the wayward and
the desolate: pretentiousness in any disguise was the one thing she
suspected and could not tolerate. It may be questioned whether she ever
deceived herself; but it must be said, that on the whole she flattered
weakness--and excused, by enchanting eloquence, much which cannot always
be justified merely on the ground that it is explicable. But to explain
was something--all but everything at the time of her appearance in
literature. Every novel she wrote made for charity--for a better
acquaintance with our neighbour's woes and our own egoism. Such an
attitude of mind is only possible to an absolutely frank, even Arcadian,
nature. She did what she wished to do: she said what she had to say, not
because she wanted to provoke excitement or astonish the multitude, but
because she had succeeded eminently in leading her own life according to
her own lights. The terror of appearing inconsistent excited her scorn.
Appearances never troubled that unashamed soul. This is the magic, the
peculiar fascination of her books. We find ourselves in the presence
of a freshness, a primeval vigour which produces actually the effect of
seeing new scenes, of facing a fresh climate. Her love of the soil,
of flowers, and the sky, for whatever was young and unspoilt, seems
to animate every page--even in her passages of rhetorical sentiment we
never suspect