From early childhood she had shown a strong liking for the theatre. The rare performances given by travelling acting-companies at La Chatre had been her greatest delight when a girl. At the convent-school she had arranged Moliere from memory for representation by herself and her school-fellows, careful so to modify the piece as to avoid all possibility of shocking the nuns. Thus the Sisters applauded _Le Malade Imaginaire_ without any suspicion that the author was one whose works, for them, were placed under a ban, and whose very name they held in devout abhorrence. She inherited from her father a taste for acting, which she transmitted to her children. We have seen her during her literary novitiate in Paris, a studious observer at all theatres, from the classic boards of the Francais down to the lowest of popular stages, the Funambules, where reigned at that time a real artist in pantomime, Debureau. His Pierrot, a sort of modified Pulchinello, was renowned; and attracted more fastidious critics to his audience than the Paris artisans whose idol he was. Since then Madame Sand had numbered among her personal friends such leading dramatic celebrities as Madame Dorval, Bocage, and Pauline Garcia. "I like actors," she says playfully, "which has scandalized some austere people. I have also been found fault with for liking the peasantry. Among these I have passed my life, and as I found them, so have I described them. As these, in the light of the sun, give us our daily bread for our bodies, so those by gaslight give us our daily bread of fiction, so needful to the wearied spirit, troubled by realities." Peasants and players seem to be the types of humanity farthest removed from each other, and it is worthy of remark that George Sand was equally successful in her presentation of both. Her preference for originality and spontaneity before all other qualities in a dramatic artist was characteristic of herself, though not of her nation. Thus it was that Madame Dorval, the heroine of _Antony_ and _Marion Delorme_, won her unbounded admiration. Even in Racine she clearly preferred her to Mlle. Mars, as being a less studied actress, and one who abandoned herself more to the inspiration of the moment. The effect produced, as described by Madame Sand, will be understood by all keenly alive, like herself, to the enjoyment of dramatic art. "She" (Madame Dorval) "seemed to me to be myself, more expansive, and to express in action and emotion all that I seek to express in writing." And compared with such an art, in which conception and expression are simultaneous, her own art of words and phrases would at such moments appear to her as but a pale reflection.