Her practice accords harmoniously with her doctrines. Nobody who knows what the actual life of George Sand has been, can doubt for a moment the true nature of her opinions on the subject of marriage. It is not a pleasant subject to touch, and we should shrink from it, if it were not as notorious as every thing else by which she has become famous in her time. It forms, in reality, as much a part of the philosophy she desires to impress upon the world, as the books through which she has expounded her theory. It is neither more nor less than her theory of freedom and independence in the matter of passion (we dare not dignify it by any higher name) put into action--rather vagrant action, we fear, but, on that account, all the more decisive. The wonder is, how any body, however ardent an admirer of George Sand's genius, can suppose for a moment that a woman who leads this life from choice, and who carries its excesses to an extremity of voluptuous caprice, could by any human possibility pass so completely out of herself into another person in her books. The supposition is not only absurd in itself, but utterly inconsistent with the boldness and sincerity of her character. Some sort of justification for the career of Madame Dudevant has been attempted to be extracted from the alleged unhappiness of her married life, which drove her at last to break the bond, and purchase her liberty at the sacrifice of a large portion of her fortune, originally considerable. But all such justifications must be accepted with hesitation in the absence of authentic data, and more especially when subsequent circumstances are of a nature to throw suspicion upon the defense. Cases undoubtedly occur in which the violent disruption of domestic ties may be extenuated even upon moral grounds; but we can not comprehend by what process of reasoning the argument can be stretched so as to cover any _indiscretions_ that take place afterward.