ter another time, and with plans of
working harder than ever.

Three weeks later we find her writing to her son's tutor, M. Boucoiran,
in the same strain:--

I am more than ever determined to follow the literary career. In
spite of the disagreeables I often meet with, in spite of days of
sloth and fatigue that come and interrupt my work, in spite of the
more than humble life I lead here, I feel that henceforth my
existence is filled. I have an object, a task, better say it at
once, a passion. The profession of a writer is a violent one, and
so to speak, indestructible. Once let it take possession of your
wretched head, you cannot stop. I have not been successful; my work
was thought too unreal by those whom I asked for advice.

But still she persisted, providing, as best she could, "copy" for the
_Figaro_, at seven francs a column, and trying the experiment of
literary collaboration, working at fictions and magazine articles, the
joint productions of herself and her friend and fellow-student, Jules
Sandeau, who wrote for the _Revue de Paris_. It was under his name that
these compositions appeared, Madam Dudevant, in these first
trial-attempts, being undesirous to bring hers before the public.

"I have no time to write home," she pleads, petitioning M. Boucoiran for
news from the country, "but I like getting letters from Nohant, it rests
my heart and my head."

And alluding to her approaching temporary return thither, in accordance
with the terms of her agreement with M. Dudevant, she writes to M.
Charles Duvernet:--

I long to get back to Berry, for I love my children more than all
besides, and, but for the hopes of becoming one day more useful to
them with the scribe's pen than with the housekeeper's needle, I
should not leave them for so long. But in spite of innumerable
obstacles I mean to take the first steps in this thorny career.

In her case it was really the first step only that cost dear; whilst
against the annoyances with which, as a new comer, she had to contend,
there was ample compensation to set in the novel interests of the
intellectual, political, and artistic world stirring around her. Country
life and peasant life she had had the opportunity of studying from her
youth up; of middle-class society she had sufficient experience; she
counted relatives and friends among the _noblesse_, and had moved in
those charmed circles;