SAND George (1804-1876)

Lot 465
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SAND George (1804-1876)
Autograph letter signed to Ernest FEYDEAU, dated Nohant 16 August [18]59 ; 4 pages in-12. Beautiful literary letter. She gives her opinion on a work of her correspondent: "... I only blame what is too obvious, what reveals the process. Do not touch the passages you are talking about, they are excellent...". This very interesting development on realism follows: "It is not a misfortune for you, any more than for Flaubert, to belong to the race of the clairvoyants. Somebody has taken it upon themselves to baptize your manner and his as realism. I don't know why; unless realism is something quite different from what the first followers tried to explain to us. I suspect, indeed, that there is a way of looking at the reality of things and beings which is a great advance, and you bring triumphant proof of it. But the name of realism is not appropriate, because art is a multiple, undefined interpretation. It is the artist who creates reality in himself, his own reality, and not that of another. Two painters paint the portrait of the same person. Both make a work that represents the person, if they are two masters. And yet the two paintings don't look the same. What has become of reality?". She returns to her remarks: "...I only insist on the mimicry that is too repeated, too precise and that tires a little. On this point, I think you must believe me, because I am a charmed reader, a friendly reader if ever there was one, and I have no system that blinds me...". Then her correspondent having asked her about herself, she speaks about it in a charming way: "I am well of age to be your mother because I am 55 years old, and I have good and skilful hands, but not beautiful at all. I have acquired the right not to be coquettish any more, I have been reproached enough for never having been so. I'll tell you anything you want to know about me. Confidences: I have no secrets, and I would like to tell you some. She and him is a very likely novel. I could show you the evidence, which is not lacking in interest...". She will not go to Paris, but hopes to receive him at her home: "You will have to come with Flaubert who also has in me a delighted reader and a literary friend with all his heart. I did not know him to be your friend, and I am glad that he is." Correspondence, ed. G. Lubin, vol. XV, no. 8346. Reprinted in Lettres d'une vie, ed. Th. Bodin, Folio Classique, 2004. Ernest Feydeau (1821-1873), a novelist belonging to the realist school. He published in 1858, Fanny, a novel that aroused violent protests in bourgeois circles but won the admiration of Flaubert and Sand, two close friends. He is the father of Georges Feydeau.
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