Page:George Sand by Bertha Thomas.djvu/87

Rh recognise there an extraordinary exhibition of poetical power and musical style. As a work of art George Sand has herself pronounced it absurd, yet she always cherished for it a special predilection, and, as will be seen, took the trouble to rewrite it some years later, when in a happier and healthier frame of mind than that which inspired this unique and most characteristic composition.

The note of despair struck in Lélia, the depth of bitter feeling, the capacity for mental and moral speculation and suffering it seemed to disclose, astounded many of her familiar acquaintance. "Lélia is a fancy-type," so writes to the author her friend and neighbour in Berry, Jules Néraud, an ardent naturalist, whose botanical and entomological pursuits she had often shared: "it is not like you—you who are merry, dance the bourrée, appreciate lepidoptera, do not despise puns, who are not a bad needle-woman, and make very good preserves. Is it possible you should have thought so much, felt so much, without anyone having any idea of it?"

Lélia was certainly the expression of a new phase in her mind's history, a moral crisis she could not escape, which was all the more severe for her having, as she remarks, reached her thirtieth year without having opened her eyes to the realities of life. Till the time of her coming to Paris, for very dearth of outward impressions she had lived chiefly in dreams, the life of all others most favourable to the