such a painful contempt for men in most of her works, as shows she
must have known great wrong from them, depicts, in "La Roche Mauprat,"
a man raised by the workings of love from the depths of savage
sensualism to a moral and intellectual life. It was love for a pure
object, for a steadfast woman, one of those who, the Italian said,
could make the "stair to heaven."

This author, beginning like the many in assault upon bad institutions,
and external ills, yet deepening the experience through comparative
freedom, sees at last that the only efficient remedy must come from
individual character. These bad institutions, indeed, it may always be
replied, prevent individuals from forming good character, therefore we
must remove them. Agreed; yet keep steadily the higher aim in view.
Could you clear away all the bad forms of society, it is vain, unless
the individual begin to be ready for better. There must be a parallel
movement in these two branches of life. And all the rules left by
Moses availed less to further the best life than the living example of
one Messiah.

Still the mind of the age struggles confusedly with these problems,
better discerning as yet the ill it can no longer bear, than the good
by which it may supersede it. But women like Sand will speak now and
cannot be silenced; their characters and their eloquence alike
foretell an era when such as they shall easier learn to lead true
lives. But though such forebode, not such shall be parents of it.
[Footnote: Appendix E.] Those who would reform the world must show that
they do not speak in the heat of wild impulse; their lives must be
unstained by passionate error; they must be severe lawgivers to
themselves. They must be religious students of the divine purpose with
regard to man, if they would not confound the fancies of a day with