put him out of the way, and then beg the woman whom they declare they love, for kisses and caresses, which she either refuses or gives in despair. These are perfectly ordinary proceedings in conjugal love. It seems to me that the love of swine is less vile and coarse than such love." These truths, already regarded as elementary by people of the highest culture, were in 1830 the most atrocious heresy. They are the salt which has kept this youthful work from becoming stale in spite of its antiquated plot and the diffuseness of the tedious letter-style. The extravagance of Romanticism is most noticeable in the final catastrophe. Jacques can think of no better means of liberating Fernande than a suicide committed in a manner which to her will give it the appearance of an accident. This transports us at once into the region of unreality. But the unreality in this novel is, generally speaking, more apparent than actual. It is easy for modern criticism to point out the absence of any indications of locality, of real occupations, &c, &c.; the personages in George Sand's early novels have no occupation and no aim but to love. The reality of these books is a spiritual reality, the reality of feeling. Even this, however, has been disputed in our day. It is the fashion to regard emotions such as those here described--this wild despair caused by social conditions, this passionate, erotic tenderness, this pure, ardent friendship between man and woman--as unnatural and unreal.[2] But we must remember that George Sand's characters are not supposed to be average men and women. She describes unusually gifted beings. Indeed, in these early works she has done little else than delineate and explain her own emotional life. She places her own character in every variety of outward circumstance, and then, with a marvellous power of self-observation and unerring skill, draws the natural psychological conclusions. It is interesting to observe how the constant craving to find a masculine mind which is the equal of her own, leads her to a kind of self-duplication in two sexes. Ardently as she exalts love, strongly as she allows it to influence the life of the great woman and of the great man, nevertheless both of these, Jacques as well as Lélia, are inspired by a still stronger, still more ideal feeling, that of friendship for a noble member of the opposite sex, by whom they are understood. In comparison with this profound mutual understanding, Lélia's love for Sténio, Jacques' for Fernande, seem merely the weaknesses of these two great souls. Lélia has an understanding friend and equal in Trenmor, Jacques in Sylvia. Jacques would love Sylvia if she were not his half-sister, or rather if he were not compelled to suspect that she is; but there is a beauty in their mutual relationship, such as it is, to which merely erotic relations could hardly attain. I remember distinctly what a powerful impression this friendship between Jacques and Sylvia made