whole world,
and plunged into oblivion of the actualities of my own existence."

Of her numerous letters of advice to her boy at school, we quote one
written during this summer of 1835, when their future relations to each
other were in painful uncertainty:--

Work, be strong and proud; despise the little troubles supposed to
belong to your age. Reserve your strength of resistance for deeds
and facts that are worth the effort. If I am here no longer, think
of me who worked and suffered cheerfully. We are like each other in
mind and in countenance. I know already from this day what your
intellectual life will be. I fear for you many and deep sorrows. I
hope for you the purest of joys. Guard within yourself that
treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to
lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness. Know how to
replace in your heart, by the happiness of those you love, the
happiness that may be wanting to yourself. Keep the hope of another
life. It is there that mothers meet their sons again. Love all
God's creatures. Forgive those who are ill-conditioned, resist
those who are unjust, and devote yourself to those who are great
through their virtue. Love me. I will teach you many, many things
if we live together. If that blessing (the greatest that can befall
me, the only one that makes me wish for a long life) is not to be,
you must pray for me, and from the grave itself, if anything
remains of me in the universe, the spirit of your mother will watch
over you.

In the autumn, 1835, Madame Dudevant, under legal advice, and supported
by the approval of friends of both parties, determined to apply to the
courts for a judicial separation from her husband, on the plea of
ill-treatment. She had sufficient grounds to allege for her claim, and
had then every reason to hope that her demand would not even be
contested by M. Dudevant, who, on former occasions, had voluntarily
signed but afterwards revoked the agreement she hereby only desired to
make valid and permanent, and which, ensuring to him a certain
proportion of her income, gave her Nohant for a place of habitation, and
established the children under her care.

Pending the issue of this suit, which, unexpectedly protracted, dragged
on until the summer of the next year, she availed herself of the
hospitality of a family at La Chatre, friends of