George Sand never studied or knew how to compose a work, how to preserve the unity of the subject or the unity in tone in characters; hence, there was nothing calculated or premeditated—­everything was spontaneous.  No preparation of plan did she ever think of—­a mode of procedure which naturally resulted in a negligent style and caused the composition to drag.  Her inspiration seemed to go so far, then she resorted to her imagination, to the chimerical, forcing events and characters.  “There are many defects in the style—­such as the sentimental part, the romanesque in the violent expression of sentiments or invention of situations, the exaggerated improbabilities of events, the excessive declamation; but how many compensating qualities are there to offset these defects!”

Her method of writing was very simple.  It was the love of writing that impelled her, almost without premeditation, to put into words her dreams, meditations, and chimeras under concrete and living forms.  Yet, by the largeness of her sympathy and the ardor of her passions, by the abundant inventions of stories, and by the harmonious word-flow, she deserves to be ranked among the greatest writers of France.  Her career, taken as a whole, is one of prodigious fecundity—­a literary life that has “enchanted by its fictions or troubled by its dreams” four or five generations.  Never diminishing in quality or inspiration, there are surprises in every new work.

No doubt George Sand has, for a generation or more, been somewhat forgotten, but what great writer has not shared the same fate?  When the materialistic age has passed away, many famous writers of the past will be resurrected, and with them George Sand; for her novels, although written to please and entertain, discuss questions of religion, philosophy, morality, problems of the heart, conscience, and education,—­and this is done in such a dramatic way that one feels all to be true.  More than that, her characters are all capable of carrying out, to the end, a common moral and general theme with eloquence seldom found in novels.

An interesting comparison might be made between Mme. de Stael and George Sand, the two greatest women writers of France.  Both wrote from their experience of life, and fought passionately against the prejudices and restrictions of social conventions; both were ideal natures and were severely tried in the school of life, profiting by their experiences; both possessed highly sensitive natures, and suffered much; both were keenly enthusiastic and sympathetic, with pardonable weaknesses; both lived through tragic wars; both evinced a dislike for the commonplace and strove for greater freedom, but for different publics, after unhappy marriages, both rose up as accusers against the prevalent system of marrying young girls.  But Mme. de Stael was a virtuoso in conversation, a salon queen, and her happiness was to be found in society alone; while George Sand found her happiness in communion with Nature.  This explains the two natures, their sufferings, their joys, their writings.