George Sand,
who had also her philosophising, and her analysing moods, was yet
capable of feeling that novels may be romances. She could write under
the sway of pure emotion and apart from theory. George Eliot never
regarded her novels as mere romances. "Romances," said George Sand in
_her_ preface, "are always 'fantasies,' and these fantasies of the
imagination are like the clouds which pass. Whence come the clouds and
whither do they go? In wandering about the Forest of Fontainebleau
tete a tete with my son I have dreamed of everything else but this
book. This book which I wrote that evening in the little inn, and
which I forgot the next morning, that I might occupy myself only with
the flowers and the butterflies. I could tell you exactly every
expedition we made, each amusement we had, but I can not tell you why
my spirit went that evening to Venice. I could easily find a good
reason, but it will be more sincere to confess that I do not remember
it."
The mind of George Sand, instead of being engaged with a problem, was
like an AEolian harp breathed upon "by every azure breath,
"That under heaven is blown
To harmonies and hues beneath,
As tender as its own.
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