The publication of her letters (looked forward to with so much impatience) has recently taken place, and the veil has been still further torn from those domestic relations well known to have been unhappy. Were they written by any one but the authoress of “Elle et Lui,” we should have regretted their appearance as indiscreet, and wanting in loyalty towards one no longer able to protest against the secrets of her life being dragged forth to amuse the crowd. A frequent charge however brought against George Sand is the want of delicacy she has shown in taking the world into her confidence. “Charity towards others, dignity towards myself, sincerity before God,” is the motto prefixed to the “Histoire de ma Vie.” She certainly is both charitable and sincere, but we must agree with her enemies in thinking it an open question whether, so far as concerns herself, she has observed a dignified reserve. Indeed, on various occasions she defiantly proclaimed, “That all hypocrisy was distasteful to her, and that it would have been the recognition of those acts as irregularities which were but the legitimate exercise of her liberty, had she been ashamed of them or endeavored to keep them secret.” The autobiography was unfortunately revised and corrected in 1869, and considerably spoilt in the process. These letters are the more interesting, therefore, as throwing sudden lights on varying moods, and showing the rejection of many heterodox opinions at first, which were afterwards accepted without hesitation. “La vie ressemble bien plutôt à un roman, qu’un roman à la vie,” she says, and certainly no heroine of one of her own romances could be more interesting as a study than she is, with her gentleness and “bavardages de mère” one moment, and her violent casting off of all domestic duties the next. Touching appeals are made to Jules Boucoiran, the tutor, to tell her whether her children ever mention her name, and directly after there is the following exultant declaration: “Ainsi, à l’heure qu’il est, à une lieue d’ici, quatre mille bêtes me croient à genoux dans le sac, et dans la cendre, pleurant mes péchés comme Madeleine. Le réveil sera terrible. Le lendemain de ma victoire, je jette ma béquille, je passe au galop de mon cheval aux quatre coins de la ville.” The first letter of the “Correspondence” is written in 1812, when Mademoiselle Aurore Dupin was a happy child of eight, living at her ancestral home, the old château of Nohant. Already she is insubordinate and high-spirited, delighted at being able to deceive her grandmother by carrying on a secret correspondence with her mother, and hiding the letters behind the portrait of the old Dupin in the entrance-hall. “Que j’ai de regret de ne pouvoir te dire adieu. Tu vois combien j’ai de chagrin de te quitter. Adieu; pense à moi, et sois que je ne t’oublierai point.—TA FILLE. Tu mettras la réponse derrière le portrait du vieux Dupin.”