her beloved. George Sand, after a night of work, complains of fatigue,
hunger and cold: "Oh, my lover," she cries, "appear, and, like the earth
on the return of the May sunshine, I should be reanimated, and would
fling off my shroud of ice and thrill with love. The wrinkles of
suffering would disappear from my brow, and I should seem beautiful and
young to you, for I should leap with joy into your iron strong arms.
Come, come, and I shall have strength, health, youth, gaiety, hope.
. . . I will go forth to meet you like the bride of the song, 'to her
well-beloved.'" The Well-beloved to whom this Shulamite would hasten was
a bald-headed provincial lawyer who wore spectacles and three mufflers.
But it appears that his "beauty, veiled and unintelligible to the
vulgar, revealed itself, like that of Jupiter hidden under human form,
to the women whom he loved."

We must not smile at these mythological comparisons. George Sand had,
as it were, restored for herself that condition of soul to which the
ancient myths are due. A great current of naturalist poetry circulates
through these pages. In Theocritus and in Rousard there are certain
descriptive passages. There is an analogy between them and that image of
the horse which carries George Sand along on her impetuous course.

"As soon as he catches sight of me, he begins to paw the ground and rear
impatiently. I have trained him to clear a hundred fathoms a second.
The sky and the ground disappear when he bears me along under those long
vaults formed by the apple-trees in blossom. . . . The least sound of my
voice makes him bound like a ball; the smallest bird makes him shudder
and hurry along like a child with no experience. He is scarcely five
years old, and he is timid and restive. His black crupper shines in the
sunshine like a raven's wing." This description has all the relief of an
antique figure. Another time, George Sand tells how she has seen Phoebus