OF THE AUTHOR

The name of George Sand is full of meaning to ail who hâve felt the charm of lier influence. It représenta to us her génération, saturated with ideas and émotions, tormenting itself vaguely in the midst of apparent calm and prosperity, just before the political excitements of 1848. Her renown was at its height about the time of the révolution of that year in France. Then the world was divided with respect to her between admiration and anathema. Now that time has softened this différence of opinion, she can be judged more impartially, and at least a certain number of her Works will, without doubt, remain a valued part of the classic literature of France.

Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin was born in 1804. She was a daughter of the "people" on her mother's side; her father, •Maurice Dupin, belonged to the lesser nobility. Many of her peculiarities are to be attributed to the influence of her environment in early years, to her passionate and conflicting love for her grandmother, who was full of aristocratie préjudice, and for her aggressively démocratie mother. Affection for the child, Aurora, was the only possible bond of union between thèse two so widely différent natures. Her father died when she was only four years old.

As a child she was dreamy and indolent, and she confesses that later in life it required an effort to rouse herself from