文档介绍：e Sand
e Sand
by Rene Doumic
Translated by Alys Hallard
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e Sand
First published in 1910. This volume is dedicated to Madame L.
Landouzy with gratitude and affection
This book is not intended as a study of e Sand. It is merely a
series of chapters touching on various aspects of her life and writings.
My work will not be lost if the perusal of these pages should inspire one of
the historians of our literature with the idea of devoting to the great
novelist, to her genius and her influence, a work of this kind.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
E SAND (From a photogravure by N. Desmardyl, after a
Painting by A. Charpentier) E SAND (From an engraving
by L. Calamatia) JULES SANDEAU (From an etching by M. Desboutins)
ALFRED DE MUSSET (From a lithograph) FACSIMILE OF AN
AUTOGRAPH LETTER OF E SAND (Written from Venice
to Hipp. Chatiron) E SAND (From a lithograph) F. CHOPIN
(From a photograph) PIERRE LEROUX (From a lithograph by A. Collette)
E SAND (From a lithograph)
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e Sand
I
AURORE DUPIN
PSYCHOLOGY OF A DAUGHTER OF ROUSSEAU
In the whole of French literary history, there is, perhaps, no subject of
such inexhaustible and modern interest as that of e Sand. Of what
use is literary history? It is not only a kind of museum, in which a few
masterpieces are preserved for the pleasure of beholders. It is this
certainly, but it is still more than this. Fine books are, before anything
else, living works. They not only have lived, but they continue to live.
They live within us, underneath those ideas which form our conscience
and those sentiments which inspire our actions. There is nothing of
greater importance for any society than to make an inventory of the ideas
and the sentiments which posing its moral atmosphere every
instant that it exists. For every individual this work is the very condition
of his dignity. The question is, should we have these ideas and these
sentiments, if, in the times before us, there had not been some exceptional