"You regain your courage, your book will be restored to you, but another time you must not forget the hour of supper. "Oh happy days! O my valley Noire! O Corinne! O Bernardin de Saint Pierre! O the Iliad! O Milleroye! O Atala! O the willows by the river! O my departed youth! O my old dog who could not forget the hour of supper, and who replied to the distant ringing of the bell by a dismal howl of regret and hunger!" In other portions of her books George Sand refers to her early life, and always in this enthusiastic manner. Her grandmother exercised no surveillance upon her reading--she perused the pages of Corinne, Atala, and Lavater, and the two former would raise strange dreams in the head of a girl only fourteen years old. She read everything which fell in her way. In reading Lavater's essays upon Physiogomy, she noticed the array of ridiculous, hideous, and grotesque pictures, and wished to know what they were for. She saw underneath them the words--drunkard--idler--glutton, etc. etc. She very soon remarked that the drunkard resembled the coachman, the cross and meddling person the cook, the pedant her own teacher, and thus she proved the infallibility of Lavater! Once, when in the convent at Paris, she was misled by the poetry of Catholicism, and abandoned herself to the highest transports of religious fervor. She passed whole hours in ecstasy at the foot of the altar. This shows the susceptibility of her imagination. About this time her grandmother died, and she left the convent to close the eyes of her much-loved grandparent. She returned, with the full determination of becoming religious. All the authority of her family was required to break this resolution, and, six months after, to prevail upon her to marry M. le baron Dudevant, the man they had sought out to be her husband. He was a retired soldier and a gentleman farmer. The union was a very unhappy one. She was sensitive, proud, and passionate, while he was cold, and entirely swallowed up in his agricultural pursuits. The dowry of Aurore amounted to one hundred thousand dollars, and this money M. Dudevant spent with a lavish hand upon his farm, but bestowed little attention upon his wife. At first she endured this life, for two children were given to her to alleviate her sorrows. But finding her lot grow more sad, and her health failing, she was ordered to taste the waters of the Pyrenees, whither she went, but without her husband. She rested at Bordeaux, and there made her entrance into society, through some kind friends residing in that city. She was received with praises. A wealthy shipping merchant fell deeply in love with her; she did not give way to it, however, but returned to her family, where she found no affection to welcome her.