Part 20

“I ought to be able to enjoy this independence bought at so dear a price,” she writes to her friend M. François Rollinat, “but I am no longer able to do so. My heart has become twenty years older, and nothing in life seems bright or gay. I can never feel anything acutely again, either sorrow or joy. I have gone through everything and rounded the cape; not like those easy-going nabobs who repose in silken hammocks under the cedarwood ceilings of their palaces, but like those poor pilots who, crushed by fatigue, and burnt by the sun, come to anchor, not daring to expose their fragile bark to the stormy seas. Formerly they led a happy life, full of adventure and love. They long to begin it again, but their vessel is dismasted, and the cargo lost.”

Alas! the “fragile bark” was tempted once more to put to sea, this time freighted with the rich cargo of all the love and all the hope of her passionate woman’s heart.

In the “Histoire de ma Vie” she touches very slightly on the episode of her journey to Venice with Alfred de Musset, and in the “Correspondence” we only read the following significant words, written to M. Jules Boucoiran from Venice on April 6, 1834:

“Alfred has left for Paris. I shall remain here some time. We have separated, for months, perhaps for ever. God knows what will become of me now. I feel still, however, full of strength to live, work, and endure.”

He suffered more than she. After lying six weeks in a brain fever hovering between life and death, he returned to his family broken down in health and spirits—“I bring you,” he writes to his brother, “a sick body, a grieving soul, and a bleeding heart, but one that still loves you.”

He declared later, when the anguish had passed, that,

“In spite of its sadness, it was the happiest period of my life. I have never told you all the story. It would be worth something if I wrote it down; but what is the use? My mistress was dark, she had large eyes! I loved her, and she forsook me. I wept and sorrowed for four months; is not that enough?”

The year that followed their separation was a momentous one in both their literary careers. He produced the “Nuit de Mai,” the “Nuit de Décembre” and the “Confessions d’un Enfant du Siècle;” while she wrote “Jacques” and “Consuelo.”

Her letters are the fittest commentary on her life and mode of thought at this time. She thus addresses M. Jules Boucoiran:

“You make serious accusations against me. You reproach me for my many frivolous friendships and affections. I never undertake to justify statements made about my character. I can explain facts and actions, but blunders of the intelligence, errors of the heart, never! I have too just an opinion of merit in general to think much of my individual worth; indeed I have neither reverence nor affection for myself, the field is therefore open to those who malign me; and I am ready to laugh with them, if they appeal to my philosophy; but when it is a question of affection, when it is the sufferings of friendship which you wish to express, you are wrong. If we have discovered great faults in those we love we must take counsel with ourselves, and see whether we can still continue to care for them. The wisest course is to give them up, the most generous to remain their friends, but for that generosity to be complete there must be no reproaches, no dragging up of events long past.”

The following is written to M. Adolphe Gueroult:

“Your letter is as good and true as your heart; but I send you back this page of it, which is absurd and quite out of place. No one must write in such terms to me. If you criticise my costume, let it be on other grounds. It is really better you should not interfere at all. Read the parts I have underlined, they are astoundingly impertinent. I don’t think you were quite responsible when you wrote them. I am not angry and am not less attached to you, but I must beg you not to be so foolish again. It does not suit you....

“My friends will respect me just as much, I hope, in a coat as in a dress. I do not go out in male habiliments without a stick, so do not be afraid ... and be assured I do not aspire to the dignity of a man. It seems to me too ridiculous a position to be preferable to the servitude of a woman. I only wish to possess to-day, and for ever, that delightful and complete independence which you seem to imagine is your prerogative alone. You can tell your friends and acquaintances that it is absolutely useless to attempt to presume on my attire or my black eyes, for I do not allow any impertinence, however I may be dressed.”

She became Republican, almost Communistic in her views, founded a paper, the _Cause du Peuple_, and contributed to another, the _Commune de Paris_.

“It seems to me,” she writes to her son, “that the earth belongs to God, who made it and has given it to man as a haven of refuge. It cannot therefore be His intention that some should suffer from repletion, while others die of hunger. All that any one can say on the subject will not prevent me from feeling miserable and angry when I see a beggar man moaning at a rich man’s door.

“If I say all this to you, however, you must not repeat it or show my letter. You know your father’s opinions are different. You must listen to him with respect, but your conscience is free, and you can choose between his ideas and mine. I will teach you many things if you and I ever live together. If we are not fated to enjoy this happiness (the greatest I can imagine, and the only thing that would make me wish to stop on earth), you will pray God for me, and from the bosom of death, if anything remains of me in the Universe, my spirit will watch over you.”

After the June massacres, she retired, sad and disappointed, to Nohant, where, surrounded by her children and grandchildren, she reigned as _père et mère de famille_, respected and loved by all. The eccentricities of her youth were forgiven for the sake of her genius and generosity of heart. She was hospitable and simple, allowing her son and his wife to manage the household and property, making her guests, however, feel that she was the controlling spirit of the house. Here—all the struggles of life over—she devoted herself to literature, and produced the best works of her life: “La Petite Fadette,” “La Mare au Diable,” and “François le Chiampi.” George Sand had none of the brilliancy and repartee in general conversation one would have expected, and as the years went on she became more silent and reserved.

Her greatest happiness was to sit in her arm-chair smoking cigarettes. Often, when her friends thought she was absorbed in her own meditations, she would put in a word that proved she had been listening to everything. The word spoken, she would relapse again into silence. It was only when she sat down to her desk that she became eloquent, and the expressions that halted on her lips rushed abundantly from her pen. Her characters grew beneath her hand, and she went on writing, with that perfect style which is like the rhythmic cadence of a great river—“Large, calm, and regular.” George Sand worked all night long after all her guests were in bed, sometimes remaining up until five o’clock in the morning. She generally sat down to the old bureau in the hall at Nohant, with pen, ink, and foolscap paper sewn together, and began, without notes or a settled scheme of any kind.

“You wish to write,” she says to her lovely young friend, the Comtesse d’Agoult. “Then do so by all means. You are young, in the full force of your intelligence and powers. Write quickly and don’t think too much. If you reflect, you will cease to have any particular bent, and will write from habit. Work while you have genius, while the gods dictate to you. I think you will have a great success, and may you be spared the thorns which surround the blessed flowers of the crown of glory. Why should the thorns pierce your flesh? You have not wandered through the desert.”

When death came, she met it simply and bravely, like the great soul that she was. “Laissez la verdure” were the last words she spoke. No one at first understood what she meant, and thought she was delirious, but afterwards they remembered that she had always expressed a dislike to slabs and crosses on the graves of those she loved, so they left a mound of grass to mark her resting-place.

As we read the works of the two great female novelists of the century, George Eliot and George Sand, a comparison inevitably suggests itself to our minds. They both had the same passionate sympathy with the trials and sufferings of humanity, the same love and reverence for all that was weak and lowly. No intellectual aristocracy existed for them; they loved the crowd, and tried to influence the crowd. It is curious they should both have made the same observation, the one on hearing Liszt, the other on hearing Mendelssohn play: “Had I any genius, _that_ is the form I should have wished to take, for then I could have spoken to _all_ my fellow-men.” George Sand was ever seeking ideal perfection, and in that search often lost the right road and “wandered in the desert.” George Eliot accepted life with that calm resignation that was part of her nature; she was more restrained and less passionate than her French sister. The one, while at school, reproaches herself for her coldness and inability to feel any enthusiasm about the prayer-meetings in vogue among her companions. The other cast herself on her knees one day in a fit of devotion, and for weeks declared that she would become a nun.

There is as much divergence in the artistic work they produced as in their characters. George Sand, without having the perfection of construction and finish that distinguish George Eliot, far surpasses her in the delineation of her female characters. George Eliot never described a woman of genius, while George Sand has written Consuelo and the Comtesse Rudolstadt, both of them types of the _femme artiste_, with all her weakness and all her greatness.

In the painting of human love, also, the French novelist is infinitely stronger than the English one. We linger with absorbing interest over the suffering and passion of Indiana and Valentine, while we yawn over the conversations between Dorothea and Will Ladislaw, or Deronda and Myra. George Eliot herself has said, “That for eloquence and depth of feeling no man approaches George Sand.”

We have seen a photograph done of George Sand shortly before she died. The face is massive, but lit up by the wonderful eyes through which the soul still shines. An expression of tenderness and gentle philosophy hovers round the lips, and we feel almost as though they would break into a smile as we gaze. She became latterly like one of those grand old trees of her own “Vallée Noire,” lopped and maimed by the storms and struggles of life, but ever to the last putting forth tender shoots and expanding into fresh foliage, through which the soft winds of heaven whisper, making music in the ears of those weary wayfarers who pause to rest beneath their shade.—_Temple Bar._

SOME INTERESTING WORDS.

One of the most interesting results of the study of language is the elucidation which it affords of the history of mankind. In the larger sphere of comparative philology, important discoveries regarding the relations of various races have been made. In some cases a common origin has been proved for the widely dissimilar languages of different nations; in others, the influence of one people upon its less civilised neighbors is clearly shown. If, on the other hand, we confine our inquiries to our own language, the historical associations which it presents are no less interesting. The successive races which predominated in the early days of the history of Great Britain, have each left its impress upon our language, in which Celtic, Latin, Saxon, Danish, and Norman elements are strangely intermingled. Even now, our commercial intercourse with the inhabitants of every quarter of the globe is ever enriching our vocabulary with borrowed terms and phrases. Hence, it is hardly to be wondered that such a composite language affords an ample field for research. We may trace in it the gradual progress of civilisation, and follow the changes of national ideas and feelings, the elevation of some words, the debasement of many others. We may recognise the half-forgotten names of men once famous for their characters and achievements, and of places once renowned for their produce and manufactures. Finally, we may recall states of society which have long since passed away, and find in modern phrases vestiges of the manners and customs of other days.

It is to these records of the minor details of life that we would briefly call attention, as an investigation possessing the double interest of investing with greater reality the history of the past, and of throwing a new light on the bearing of words otherwise inexplicable. This class of words has undoubtedly been increased by startling derivations, due more to the imagination and ingenuity of their inventors, than to any certain foundation in fact. But even those which are universally recognised form a considerable category, from which we may select a few of the more interesting specimens.

We would first remind our readers of the derivations of two words applied to a peculiar form of wealth—the substantive _fee_ and the adjective _pecuniary_, which, though so widely different in form, recall to us the same idea through the vehicle of different languages. They are both taken from words—the one Saxon, the other Latin—signifying “cattle,” and thus take us back to the times when flocks and herds were the chief property of our ancestors, the evidence as well as the source of their wealth. It is curious how, from this first signification, the words came to be considered applicable to wealth of any kind, and have now become almost limited in meaning to property in the form of money. To the same days of primitive simplicity we may also undoubtedly attribute the word _rivals_, when the pastoral dwellers by the same stream (Latin _rivus_) would not unfrequently be brought into unfriendly competition with each other. Some words and expressions are derived from the time when but few persons could boast of what we should consider the most elementary education. The word _signature_, for example, had a more literal application in the days when the art of writing was known but to a few monks and scholars, and when kings and barons, no less than their humbler followers, affixed their cross or _sign_ to any document requiring their assent. Again, when we speak of abstruse _calculations_, we make unthinking reference to the primitive method of counting by means of pebbles (_calculi_), resorted to by the Romans.

It is remarkable how many of the terms relating to books and the external materials of literature refer primarily to the simple materials made use of by our ancestors to preserve their thoughts and the records of their lives. In _book_ itself, it is generally acknowledged we have a proof of how a primitive race, generally believed to have been the Goths, employed the durable wood of the _boc_ or beech-tree on which to inscribe their records. _Library_ and kindred words in our own and other modern languages indicate the use of the _liber_ or inner bark of a tree as a writing material; while _code_, from _caudex_, the trunk of a tree, points to the wooden tablets smeared with wax on which the ancients originally wrote. The thin wooden leaves or tablets were not like the _volumina_, rolled within one another, but, like those of our books, lay over one another. The _stilus_, or iron-pointed implement used for writing on these tablets, has its modern form in our _style_, which has come to be applied less to the manner of writing than to the mode of expression. Hence its significance has been extended so as to apply to arts other than that of composition. As advancing civilisation brought to the Western world the art of making a writing material from strips of the inner rind of the Egyptian papyrus glued together transversely, the word _paper_ was introduced, to be applied as time went on to textures made of various substances. The Greek name of the same plant (_byblos_) gives us a word used with reference to books in the composite forms of _biblio_grapher, _biblio_mania, and so forth. It is worthy of remark that in England, as well as in France, Germany, and other European countries, the simple form of this Greek word for book, our _Bible_, has come to be restricted to One Book, to the exclusion of all others. From _scheda_, a Latin word for a strip of papyrus rind, has also descended our _schedule_.

The transition from tablets to paper as a writing material has also a monument in _volume_, which, in spite of its significance as a roll of paper, is applied to the neatly folded books which have taken the place of that cumbrous form of literature. More than one instance of a similar retention of a word the actual signification of which is completely obsolete, might easily be adduced. The word _indenture_ refers to an ancient precaution against forgery resorted to in the case of important contracts. The duplicate documents, of which each party retained one, were irregularly _indented_ in precisely the same manner, so that upon comparison they might exactly tally. A _vignette_ portrait has also lost the accompaniment which alone made the name appropriate, namely, the vine-leaves and tendrils which in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries usually formed its ornamental border. The directions in the English Prayer-book, again, are still known as _rubrics_ (Latin _ruber_, red), although it is now the exception rather than the rule to see them printed as originally, in _red_ letters. Once more, we apply without any sense of incongruity the name of _pen_ (from Latin _penna_, a feather) to all those modern appliances which rival, if they have not yet superseded, the quill, to which alone the word is really appropriate.

Several words come down to us derived from customs connected with election to public offices. The word _candidate_ (from Latin _candidus_, white), is one of these. It was customary among the Romans for any suitor for office to appear in a peculiar dress denoting his position. His toga was loose, so that he might show the people the scars of the wounds received in the cause of the commonwealth, and artificially _whitened_ in token of fidelity and humility. Again, _ambition_—a word of which the significance has been widened to embrace the most overpowering of all the passions of the human heart—refers primarily to the practice of these same candidates of repairing to the forum and other places of public resort, and their “going round” (Latin _ambientes_) among the people, endeavoring to ingratiate themselves by friendly words and greetings. From the ancient practice of secret voting by means of “balls,” we have the word _ballot_, which is erroneously applied to all secret voting, even when, as in the case of our parliamentary elections, voting-papers, and not balls, are employed. Nor must we omit another word of similar origin—that is, _ostracism_. This word signified among the Greeks the temporary banishment which might be inflicted by six thousand votes of the Athenian people upon any person suspected of designs against the liberty of the state. The name arose from the votes being recorded upon a bit of burnt clay or an earthenware tile shaped like a shell (Gr. _ostrakon_, a shell). It is closely allied to the Greek _ostreon_, or Latin _ostrea_, an oyster. A somewhat similar practice existed among the Syracusans, where it went by the name of _petalism_, from the leaf (Gr. _petalon_) on which the name of the offender was written. With the caprice of language, this word has entirely passed away, while the Athenian custom gives us a word expressive of social exclusion.

It has been said that there is hardly an institution of ancient times which has not some memorial in our language. The sacrifices of Greeks and Romans are commemorated in the word _immolate_, from the habit of throwing meal (Latin _mola_) upon the head of the victim. The word _contemplate_ was probably used originally of the augurs who frequented the temples of the gods, _temple_ meaning originally “a place cut off,” and hence “reserved,” Our word _funeral_ is borrowed from a Latin word of similar signification, which in its turn is connected with _fumus_, smoke, thus giving us an allusion to the ancient habit of burning the bodies of the dead. Another word connected with the rites accorded to the dead—that is, _dirge_—is of Christian origin. It is a contraction of the first word of the antiphon in the office for the dead, taken from the eighth verse of the fifth Psalm: “Dirge, Dominus meus,” etc. (“Lead or direct me, O Lord,” etc.). From a Roman law-term of Greek origin we have the word _paraphernalia_, signifying strictly those articles of personal property, besides her jointure, which were at the disposal of a woman after the death of her husband.

From a detail of Roman military life we trace the derivation of the word _subsidy_, originally applied only to assistance in arms, but generalised to signify help of any kind, especially pecuniary aid. _Salary_ meant originally “salt-money,” or money given to the soldiers for salt. With the inconsistency frequently found in language, the name survived after money had taken the place of such rations. Strictly speaking, the word _stipend_ is liable to the same etymological objection, since the meaning of the word is a certain quantity of small coins estimated by weight.

The derivation of the word _tragedy_ has been a fruitful field of controversy. It is undoubtedly the case that this class of drama was originally of anything but a mournful and pathetic character, and was a remnant of the winter festival in honor of the god Dionysus. The word is coined from the Greek _tragos_, a goat; but various reasons have been assigned for this connection. Some assert that a goat was the prize awarded to the best extempore poem in honor of the god; others, that the first actors were dressed like satyrs, in goat-skins. A more likely explanation is that a goat was sacrificed at the singing of the song.