commence them.

Chateaubriand, in one of the latest chapters of his Posthumous
Memoirs, speaks at some length of George Sand. The verdict of the most
illustrious French literary man of the age which has just closed,
upon this most remarkable writer of the age now passing, is every
way interesting, and we translate it for the _International_ from the
columns of _La Presse_, as follows:

Madame Sand possesses talents of the first order. Her descriptions are
true as those of Rousseau in his Reveries, and those of Bernardin
St. Pierre in his Studies. Her free style is stained by none of the
current faults of the day. Lelia, a book painful to read, and offering
only here and there one of the delicious scenes which may be found in
Indiana and Valentine, is nevertheless a master-work of its kind. Of
the nature of a debauch, it is yet without passion, though it produces
the disturbance of passion. The soul is wanting, but still it weighs
upon the heart. Depravity of maxims, insult to rectitude of life,
could not go farther; but over the abyss descends the talent of the
author. In the valley of Gomorrah the dew falls nightly upon the Dead
Sea.

The works of Madame Sand, those romances, the poetry of matter, are
born of the epoch. Notwithstanding her superiority, it is to be feared
that the author has narrowed the circle of her readers by the very
character of her writings. George Sand will never be a favorite with
persons of all ages. Of two men equal in genius, one of whom preaches
order and the other disorder, the first will attract the greater
number of hearers. The human race never give unanimous applause to
what wounds morality, on which repose the feeble and the just. We do