On the 20th of April he wrote:--"The little horse is well; God has
helped me."

German manners and customs are so different from ours, and contrasts
occur so frequently in the same man, on the other side of the Rhine, that
anything less than all the quotations which we have given would have been
insufficient to place before our readers a true idea of that character
made up of artlessness and reason, childishness and strength, depression
and enthusiasm, material details and poetic ideas, which renders Sand a
man incomprehensible to us. We will now continue the portrait, which
still wants a few finishing touches.

When he returned to Erlangen, after the completion of his "cure," Sand
read Faust far the first time. At first he was amazed at that work,
which seemed to him an orgy of genius; then, when he had entirely
finished it, he reconsidered his first impression, and wrote:--

"4th May

"Oh, horrible struggle of man and devil! What Mephistopheles is in me I
feel far the first time in this hour, and I feel it, O God, with
consternation!

"About eleven at night I finished reading the tragedy, and I felt and saw
the fiend in myself, so that by midnight, amid my tears and despair, I
was at last frightened at myself."

Sand was falling by degrees into a deep melancholy, from which nothing
could rouse him except his desire to purify and preach morality to the
students around him. To anyone who knows university life such a task