Page:George Sand by Bertha Thomas.djvu/77

Rh bold and uncompromising manner in which this plain fact was brought forward, the energy of the protest against a real social abuse, which moved some critics to sound a war-cry for which, as yet, no just warrant had been given.

Besides these two novels, containing full proof of her genius, if not of its highest employment, there appeared late in 1832 that remarkable novelette, La Marquise, revealing fresh qualities of subtle penetration and clear analysis. The flexibility of her imagination, the variety in her modes of its application, form an essential characteristic of her work. Not by any single novel, nor, indeed, by half-a-dozen taken at random, can she be adequately represented.

When in the winter of 1832 Madame Sand returned with her little girl to Paris after spending the autumn as usual at Nohant, it was to rather more comfortable quarters, on the Quai Malplaquet. The rapid sale of her books was placing her in comparatively easy circumstances, and giving fresh spur to her activity. But her situation was transforming itself fast; the freedom of obscurity was lost to her for ever from the day when the unknown personage, George Sand, became the object of general curiosity—of curiosity redoubled in Paris by the rumours current there of her exceptional position, eccentric habits, and interesting personality.

The celebrated portrait of her by Eugène Delacroix was painted in the year 1833. It is a three-quarter