Volume II Part 17 (1/2)
TO E.H.
_Paris, Jan. 18, 1847,_ and _Naples, March 17, 1847._--You wished to hear of George Sand, or, as they say in Paris, ”Madame Sand.” I find that all we had heard of her was true in the outline; I had supposed it might be exaggerated. She had every reason to leave her husband,--a stupid, brutal man, who insulted and neglected her. He afterwards gave up their child to her for a sum of money. But the love for which she left him lasted not well, and she has had a series of lovers, and I am told has one now, with whom she lives on the footing of combined means, independent friends.h.i.+p! But she takes rank in society like a man, for the weight of her thoughts, and has just given her daughter in marriage. Her son is a grown-up young man, an artist. Many women visit her, and esteem it an honor. Even an American here, and with the feelings of our country on such subjects, Mrs. ----, thinks of her with high esteem. She has broken with La Mennais, of whom she was once a disciple.
I observed to Dr. Francois, who is an intimate of hers, and loves and admires her, that it did not seem a good sign that she breaks with her friends. He said it was not so with her early friends; that she has chosen to buy a chateau in the region where she pa.s.sed her childhood, and that the people there love and have always loved her dearly. She is now at the chateau, and, I begin to fear, will not come to town before I go. Since I came, I have read two charming stories recently written by her. Another longer one she has just sold to _La Presse_ for fifteen thousand francs. She does not receive nearly as much for her writings as Balzac, Dumas, or Sue. She has a much greater influence than they, but a less circulation.
She stays at the chateau, because the poor people there were suffering so much, and she could help them. She has subscribed _twenty thousand francs_ for their relief, in the scarcity of the winter. It is a great deal to earn by one's pen: a novel of several volumes sold for only fifteen thousand francs, as I mentioned before. * * *
At last, however, she came; and I went to see her at her house, Place d'Orleans. I found it a handsome modern residence. She had not answered my letter, written about a week before, and I felt a little anxious lest she should not receive me; for she is too much the mark of impertinent curiosity, as well as too busy, to be easily accessible to strangers. I am by no means timid, but I have suffered, for the first time in France, some of the torments of _mauvaise honte_, enough to see what they must be to many.
It is the custom to go and call on those to whom you bring letters, and push yourself upon their notice; thus you must go quite ignorant whether they are disposed to be cordial. My name is always murdered by the foreign servants who announce me. I speak very bad French; only lately have I had sufficient command of it to infuse some of my natural spirit in my discourse. This has been a great trial to me, who am eloquent and free in my own tongue, to be forced to feel my thoughts struggling in vain for utterance.
The servant who admitted me was in the picturesque costume of a peasant, and, as Madame Sand afterward told me, her G.o.d-daughter, whom she had brought from her province. She announced me as ”_Madame Salere,_” and returned into the ante-room to tell me. ”_Madame says she does not know you_” I began to think I was doomed to a rebuff, among the crowd who deserve it. However, to make a.s.surance sure, I said, ”Ask if she has not received a letter from me.” As I spoke, Madame S. opened the door, and stood looking at me an instant. Our eyes met. I never shall forget her look at that moment. The doorway made a frame for her figure; she is large, but well-formed. She was dressed in a robe of dark violet silk, with a black mantle on her shoulders, her beautiful hair dressed with the greatest taste, her whole appearance and att.i.tude, in its simple and lady-like dignity, presenting an almost ludicrous contrast to the vulgar caricature idea of George Sand. Her face is a very little like the portraits, but much finer; the upper part of the forehead and eyes are beautiful, the lower, strong and masculine, expressive of a hardy temperament and strong pa.s.sions, but not in the least coa.r.s.e; the complexion olive, and the air of the whole head Spanish, (as, indeed, she was born at Madrid, and is only on one side of French blood.) All these details I saw at a glance; but what fixed my attention was the expression of _goodness_, n.o.bleness, and power, that pervaded the whole,--the truly human heart and nature that shone in the eyes. As our eyes met, she said, ”_C'est vous_” and held out her hand. I took it, and went into her little study; we sat down a moment, then I said, ”_Il me fait de bien de vous voir_” and I am sure I said it with my whole heart, for it made me very happy to see such a woman, so large and so developed a character, and everything that _is_ good in it so _really_ good. I loved, shall always love her.
She looked away, and said, ”_Ah! vous m'avez ecrit une lettre charmante_” This was all the preliminary of our talk, which then went on as if we had always known one another. She told me, before I went away, that she was going that very day to write to me; that when the servant announced me she did not recognize the name, but after a minute it struck her that it might be _La dame Americaine,_ as the foreigners very commonly call me, for they find my name hard to remember. She was very much pressed for time, as she was then preparing copy for the printer, and, having just returned, there were many applications to see her, but she wanted me to stay then, saying, ”It is better to throw things aside, and seize the present moment.” I staid a good part of the day, and was very glad afterwards, for I did not see her again uninterrupted. Another day I was there, and saw her in her circle. Her daughter and another lady were present, and a number of gentlemen. Her position there was of an intellectual woman and good friend,--the same as my own in the circle of my acquaintance as distinguished from my intimates. Her daughter is just about to be married. It is said, there is no congeniality between her and her mother; but for her son she seems to have much love, and he loves and admires her extremely. I understand he has a good and free character, without conspicuous talent.
Her way of talking is just like her writing,--lively, picturesque, with an undertone of deep feeling, and the same skill in striking the nail on the head every now and then with a blow.
We did not talk at all of personal or private matters. I saw, as one sees in her writings, the want of an independent, interior life, but I did not feel it as a fault, there is so much in her of her kind.
I heartily enjoyed the sense of so rich, so prolific, so ardent a genius. I liked the woman in her, too, very much; I never liked a woman better.
For the rest I do not care to write about it much, for I cannot, in the room and time I have to spend, express my thoughts as I would; but as near as I can express the sum total, it is this. S---- and others who admire her, are anxious to make a fancy picture of her, and represent her as a Helena (in the Seven Chords of the Lyre); all whose mistakes are the fault of the present state of society. But to me the truth seems to be this. She has that purity in her soul, for she knows well how to love and prize its beauty; but she herself is quite another sort of person. She needs no defence, but only to be understood, for she has bravely acted out her nature, and always with good intentions. She might have loved one man permanently, if she could have found one contemporary with her who could interest and command her throughout her range; but there was hardly a possibility of that, for such a person. Thus she has naturally changed the objects of her affection, and several times. Also, there may have been something of the Bacchante in her life, and of the love of night and storm, and the free raptures amid which roamed on the mountain-tops the followers of Cybele, the great G.o.ddess, the great mother. But she was never coa.r.s.e, never gross, and I am sure her generous heart has not failed to draw some rich drops from every kind of wine-press. When she has done with an intimacy, she likes to break it off suddenly, and this has happened often, both with men and women. Many calumnies upon her are traceable to this cause.
I forgot to mention, that, while talking, she _does_ smoke all the time her little cigarette. This is now a common practice among ladies abroad, but I believe originated with her.
For the rest, she holds her place in the literary and social world of France like a man, and seems full of energy and courage in it. I suppose she has suffered much, but she has also enjoyed and done much, and her expression is one of calmness and happiness. I was sorry to see her _exploitant_ her talent so carelessly. She does too much, and this cannot last forever; but ”Teverino” and the ”Mare au Diable,”
which she has lately published, are as original, as masterly in truth, and as free in invention, as anything she has done.
Afterwards I saw Chopin, not with her, although he lives with her, and has for the last twelve years. I went to see him in his room with one of his friends. He is always ill, and as frail as a snow-drop, but an exquisite genius. He played to me, and I liked his talking scarcely less. Madame S. loved Liszt before him; she has thus been intimate with the two opposite sides of the musical world. Mickiewicz says, ”Chopin talks with spirit, and gives us the Ariel view of the universe. Liszt is the eloquent _tribune_ to the world of men, a little vulgar and showy certainly, but I like the tribune best.” It is said here, that Madame S. has long had only a friends.h.i.+p for Chopin, who, perhaps, on his side prefers to be a lover, and a jealous lover; but she does not leave him, because he needs her care so much, when sick and suffering. About all this, I do not know; you cannot know much about anything in France, except what you see with your two eyes.
Lying is ingrained in ”_la grande nation_” as they so plainly show no less in literature than life.
RACHEL.
In France the theatre is living; you see something really good, and good throughout. Not one touch of that stage-strut and vulgar bombast of tone, which the English actor fancies indispensable to scenic illusion, is tolerated here. For the first time in my life, I saw something represented in a style uniformly good, and should have found sufficient proof, if I had needed any, that all men will prefer what is good to what is bad, if only a fair opportunity for choice be allowed. When I came here, my first thought was to go and see Mademoiselle Rachel. I was sure that in her I should find a true genius. I went to see her seven or eight times, always in parts that required great force of soul, and purity of taste, even to conceive them, and only once had reason to find fault with her. On one single occasion, I saw her violate the harmony of the character, to produce effect at a particular moment; but, almost invariably, I found her a true artist, worthy Greece, and worthy at many moments to have her conceptions immortalized in marble.
Her range even in high tragedy is limited. She can only express the darker pa.s.sions, and grief in its most desolate aspects. Nature has not gifted her with those softer and more flowery attributes, that lend to pathos its utmost tenderness. She does not melt to tears, or calm or elevate the heart by the presence of that tragic beauty that needs all the a.s.saults of fate to make it show its immortal sweetness.
Her n.o.blest aspect is when sometimes she expresses truth in some severe shape, and rises, simple and austere, above the mixed elements around her. On the dark side, she is very great in hatred and revenge.
I admired her more in Phedre than in any other part in which I saw her; the guilty love inspired by the hatred of a G.o.ddess was expressed, in all its symptoms, with a force and terrible naturalness, that almost suffocated the beholder. After she had taken the poison, the exhaustion and paralysis of the system,--the sad, cold, calm submission to Fate,--were still more grand.
I had heard so much about the power of her eye in one fixed look, and the expression she could concentrate in a single word, that the utmost results could only satisfy my expectations. It is, indeed, something magnificent to see the dark cloud give out such sparks, each one fit to deal a separate death; but it was not that I admired most in her.
It was the grandeur, truth, and depth of her conception of each part, and the sustained purity with which she represented it.
The French language from her lips is a divine dialect; it is stripped of its national and personal peculiarities, and becomes what any language must, moulded by such a genius, the pure music of the heart and soul. I never could remember her tone in speaking any word; it was too perfect; you had received the thought quite direct. Yet, had I never heard her speak a word, my mind would be filled by her att.i.tudes. Nothing more graceful can be conceived, nor could the genius of sculpture surpa.s.s her management of the antique drapery.