er than quote Mr. Matthew Arnold's
interesting account, given in the _Fortnightly_, 1877, of his visit to
her in August, 1846. Desirous of seeing the green lanes of Berry, the
rocky heaths of Bourbonnais, the descriptions of which in _Valentine_
and _Jeanne_ had charmed him so strongly, the traveller chose a route
that brought him to within a few miles of her home:--"I addressed to
Madame Sand," he tells us, "the sort of letter of which she must in her
lifetime have had scores--a letter conveying to her, in bad French, the
youthful and enthusiastic homage of a foreigner who had read her works
with delight." She responded by inviting him to call at Nohant. He came
and joined a breakfast-party that included Madame Sand and her son and
daughter, Chopin, and other friends--Mr. Arnold being placed next to the
hostess. He says of her:--

As she spoke, her eyes, head, bearing were all of them striking,
but the main impression she made was one of simplicity, frank,
cordial simplicity. After breakfast she led the way into the
garden, asked me a few kind questions about myself and my plans,
gathered a flower or two and gave them to me, shook hands heartily
at the gate, and I saw her no more.

During the eight years of successful literary activity, lying between
Madame Sand's return from Majorca and the Revolution of February, 1848,
the profits of her work had, after the first, enabled her freely to
spend the greater part of the year at Nohant, and to provide a
substantial dowry for her daughter. But the amassing of wealth suited
neither her taste nor her principles. She writes to her poet-protege M.
Poncy, in September, 1845:--

We are in easy circumstances, which enables us to do away with
poverty in our own neighborhood, and if we feel the sorrow of being
unable to do away with that which desolates the world--a deep
sorrow, especially at my age, when life has no intoxicating
personality left, and one sees plainly the spectacle of society in
its injustices and frightful disorder--at least we know nothing of
_ennui_, of restless ambition and selfish passions. We have a sort
of relative happiness, and my children enjoy it with the simplicity
of their age.

As for me, I only accept it in trembling, for all happiness is like
a theft in this ill-regulated world of men, where you cannot enjoy
your ease or your liberty, except to the detriment