rapid, tumultuous flow of
conversation, together with its occasional negligences, its careless
periods, its sudden turns, its encumbered phrases. Misguided she
sometimes was, and carried away by the resistless rush of ideas that,
like the mountain torrent, gathered much debris along their course. But
her rapid judgments, which have the force of inspiration, are in advance
of her time, though in the main correct from her own point of view,
while her flaws in workmanship are more than counterbalanced by that
inward illumination which is Heaven's richest and rarest gift. But who
cares to dwell upon the shadows that scarcely dim the brilliancy of a
genius so rare and so commanding? They are but spots on the sun that are
only discovered by looking through a glass that veils its radiance.
It is just to weigh her by the standards of her own age. Born at its
highest level, she soared far above her generation. She carried within
herself the vision of a statesman, the penetration of a critic, the
insight of a philosopher, the soul of a poet, and the heart of a woman.
If she was not without faults, she had rare virtues. No woman has ever
exercised a wider or more varied influence. With one or two exceptions,
none stands on so high a pinnacle. George Sand was a more finished
artist; George Eliot was a greater novelist, a more accurate scholar,
and a more logical thinker; but in versatility, in intellectual
spontaneity, in brilliancy of conversation and natural eloquence of
thought she is without a rival. Her moral standards, too, were above the
average of her time. Her ideals were high and pure. The wealth of her
emotions and the rich coloring of sentiment in which her thoughts and
feelings were often clothed left her open to possible misconceptions. It
was her fate to be grossly misunderstood, to miss the domestic happiness
she craved, to be the victim of a sleepless persecution, to pass
her best years in a dreary exile from the life she most loved, to be
maligned by her enemies and betrayed by her friends. Her very virtues
were construed into faults and turned against her. Though we may not
lift the veil from her intimate life, we may fairly judge her by her own
ideals and her dominant traits. The world, which is rarely indulgent,
has been in the main just to her motives and her character. "I have
been ever the same, intense and sad," were among her last words. "I
have loved God, my father, and liberty." But she was a victim to th