The Masterpieces of George Sand, Amandine Lucille Aurore Dupin, Baroness Dudevant, _NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME COMPLETELY TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH INDIANA BY G. BURNHAM IVES_ _WITH SIX PHOTOGRAVURES AFTER PAINTINGS BY ORESTE CORTAZZO_ _IN ONE VOLUME_ _PRINTED ONLY FOR SUBSCRIBERS BY GEORGE BARRIE & SON PHILADELPHIA_ CONTENTS INTRODUCTION PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1832 PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1842 PART FIRST PART SECOND PART THIRD PART FOURTH CONCLUSION LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS _MADAME DELMARE DISCOVERS NOUN'S BODY_ _MADAME DELMARE DRESSES DE RAMIÈRES WOUNDS_ _THE BOAR HUNT_ _SIR RALPH SAVES INDIANA_ _MADAME DELMARE'S FLIGHT_ _RALPH AND INDIANA SEEK DEATH TOGETHER_ [Illustration 01: _MADAME DELMARE DISCOVERS NOUN'S BODY_ _Terror nailed her to the spot; but the stream flowed on, slowly drawing a body from the reeds among which it had caught, and bringing it toward Madame Delmare._] INTRODUCTION I wrote Indiana during the autumn of 1831. It was my first novel; I wrote it without any fixed plan, having no theory of art or philosophy in my mind. I was at the age when one writes with one's instincts, and when reflection serves only to confirm our natural tendencies. Some people chose to see in the book a deliberate argument against marriage. I was not so ambitious, and I was surprised to the last degree at all the fine things that the critics found to say concerning my subversive purposes. Criticism is far too acute; that is what will cause its death. It never passes judgment ingenuously on what has been done ingenuously. It looks for noon at four o'clock, as the old women say, and must cause much suffering to artists who care more for its decrees than they ought to do. Under all régimes and in all times there has been a race of critics, who, in contempt of their own talent, have fancied that it was their duty to ply the trade of denouncers, of purveyors to the prosecuting attorney's office; extraordinary functions for men of letters to assume with regard to their confrères! The rigorous measures of government against the press never satisfy these savage critics. They would have them directed not only against works but against persons as well, and, if their advice were followed, some of us would be forbidden to write anything whatsoever.