GEORGE SAND. ByJUSTIN M'CARTHY.
Reprinted from "The Galaxy" for May, 1870.
We are all of us probably inclined, now and then, to waste a little timein vaguely speculating on what might have happened if this or thatparticular event had not given a special direction to the career of somegreat man or woman. If there had been an inch of difference in the sizeof Cleopatra's nose; if Hannibal had not lingered at Capua; if Cromwellhad carried out his idea of emigration; if Napoleon Bonaparte had takenservice under the Turk,—and so on through all the old familiarillustrations dear to the minor essayist and the debating society. Ihave sometimes felt tempted thus to lose myself in speculating on whatmight have happened if the woman whom all the world knows as George Sandhad been happily married in her youth to the husband of her choice.Would she ever have taken to literature at all? Would she, loving as shedoes, and as Frenchwomen so rarely do, the changing face of inanimate[Pg 2]nature,—the fields, the flowers and the brooks,—have lived a peacefuland obscure life in some happy country place, and been content withhome, and family, and love, and never thought of fame? Or if, thushappily married, she still had allowed her genius to find an expressionin literature, would she have written books with no passionate purposein them,—books which might have seemed like those of a good Miss Mulockmade perfect,—books which Podsnap might have read with approval, andput without a scruple into the hands of that modest young person, hisdaughter? Certainly one cannot but think that a different kind of earlylife would have given a quite different complexion to the literaryindividuality of George Sand.
Bulwer Lytton, in one of his novels, insists that true genius is alwaysquite independent of the individual sufferings or joys of its possessor,and describes some inspired youth in the novel as sitting down, whilesorrow is in his heart, and hunger gnawing at his vitals, to throw off asparkling and gladsome little fairy tale. Now this is undoubtedly true,in general, of any high order of genius; but there are at least somegreat and striking exceptions. Rousseau and Byron are, in modern days,remarkable illustrations of genius, admittedly of a very high rank,governed and guided almost wholly by the individual fortunes of the menthemselves. So, too, must we speak of the genius of George Sand. NotRousseau, not even Byron, was in this sense more egotistic than thewoman who broke the chains of her ill-assorted marriage with a crashthat made its echoes heard at last in every civilized country in theworld. Just as people are constantly quoting nous avons changé toutcela who never read a page of Molière, or pour encourager les autres[Pg 3]without even being aware that there is a story of Voltaire's called"Candide," so there have been thousands of passionate protests utteredin America and Europe, for the last twenty years, by people who neversaw a volume of George Sand, and yet are only echoing her sentiments andeven repeating her words.
In a former number of The Galaxy, I expressed casually the opinionthat George Sand is probably the most influential writer of our day. Iam still, and deliberately, of the same opinion. It must be rememberedthat very few English or American authors have any wide or deepinfluence over peoples who do not speak English. Even of the verygreatest authors this is true. Compare, for example, the literarydominion of Shakespeare with that of Cervantes. All nations who readShakespeare read Cervantes: in Stratford-upon-