The works of Madame Sand, her novels, the poetry of matter, are born of the time. In spite of her superiority, it is to be feared that the author has, by the very nature of her works, narrowed the circle of her readers. George Sand will never belong to every age. Of two men of equal genius, of whom one preaches order, the other disorder, the first will attract the greater number of admirers: the human race refuses to accord unanimous applause to that which offends, morality, the pillow on which the weak and the just sleep; we can hardly associate with all the memories of our life books which caused our first blush, books whose pages we did not learn by heart on leaving the cradle, books which we have read only by stealth, which have not been our acknowledged and cherished companions, which are connected with neither the purity of our sentiments nor the integrity of our innocence. Providence has confined successes that do not take their origin in good within strait limits and has given universal glory as an encouragement to virtue. [Sidenote: Her particular talent.] I am arguing here, I know, like a man whose restricted sight does not embrace the immense "humanitarian" horizon, like a reactionary attached to a ridiculous moral system, a decrepit moral system of olden time, good at most for unenlightened minds, in the infancy of society. A new Gospel is about to take birth forthwith, placed far above the commonplaces of that conventional wisdom which arrests the progress of mankind and the rehabilitation of that poor body of ours, so sadly slandered by the soul. When the women will be running about the streets, when it will be sufficient, in order to get married, to open a window and summon God to the wedding as witness, priest and guest: then all prudery will be destroyed; there will be nuptials everywhere and we shall rise, like the doves, to nature's level. My criticism of the taste of Madame Sand's works would, therefore, possess a certain value only in the vulgar order of past things; wherefore I hope that she will not be offended by it: the admiration which I profess for her must make her excuse remarks which owe their origin to the infelicity of my age. In former days, I should have been more carried away by the Muses; those daughters of the olden sky were my fair mistresses: they keep me company in the evening in the chimney-corner, but they soon leave me, for I go to bed early, and they go to sit up by Madame Sand's fire-side.