isrepresentation. No statement so
unfounded, so wildly improbable about her, but it obtained circulation
and credit. Till the end of her life she remained the centre of a cloud
of myths, many, to the present day, accepted as gospel. People insisted
on identifying her with the heroines of her novels. Incidents, personal
descriptions, nay, whole letters extracted from these novels will be
found literally transcribed into alleged biographies of herself and her
friends, as her own statement of matters of fact. Now, though the spirit
of her life is strongly and faithfully represented by her fiction taken
as a whole, those who would read in any special novel the literal record
of any of the special events of her existence cannot be too much on
their guard. Whatever the material under treatment, George Sand must
retouch, embellish, transform, artist-fashion, as her genius shall
dictate, till often little resemblance is left between the original and
the production it has done no more than suggest. Romance and reality are
so fused together in these apparent outpourings of spirit that her
nearest friends were at a loss how to separate them. As an actress into
many a favorite part, so could she throw herself into her favorite
characters; but seldom if ever will much warrant be found in actual fact
for identifying these creations with their creatress.

How, indeed, could so many-sided a nature as hers be truly represented
in a single novel? Her rare physical and mental energies enabled her to
combine a life of masculine intellectual activity with the more highly
emotional life of a woman, and with vigilance in her maternal cares.
Maurice was placed in the spring of 1833 at the College Henri IV., at
Paris; thus she had now both son and daughter near her, and watched
indefatigably over them, their childish illnesses and childish
amusements, their moral and intellectual training absorbing a large
share of her time and attention. Heine, a friendly visitor at her house,
says:--

I have often been present for hours whilst she gave her children a
lesson in French, and it is a pity that the whole of the French
Academy could not have been present too, as it is quite certain
that they might have derived great profit from it.

Not all the distractions of fame and work, of passionate pleasure or
passionate sorrow, ever relaxed her active solicitude for the present
and future welfare of her two young children. "They give m