Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-10-29

the last number OF the Atlantic Honthty.
The following passages, descriptive Of the
marriage and personal history Of this re-
marksble woman, will be read with inter-
est; .u1
GEORGE SANDS MARRIAGE.
Aurors, at first, was neither happy nor
| unhappy in her marriage. Her surroundings
! were friendly and pleasant, and the birth of
q son, third Maurice, soon brought to her
! experience the keenest Joy Of womanhood.
| Before this child numbered two years, how
! ever, she began TO feel certain blank in her
household existence, an emptiness, dis
couragement as to all things, whose cause
she could not understand. In this ennui, she
tells us, her husband sympathized, and by
common consent they strove to remedy it by
Paris, Plessis, returned to Nohant, made
| journey in the Pyrenees, visit TO CUTLERY,
the chateau of Colonel Dudevant. Still the
dark guest pursued them. Aurore does not
pretend that there was any special cause for
her suffering. 1t was but the void which
her passionate nature found in conven-
tional and limited existence, and for which
as yet she knew no remedy.
The fervor of Catholic devotion had, as we
have seen, long forsaken her; her studies did
| not satisfy her; her children-she had by
this time daughter-were yet 10 infancy;
her husband was not unkind, but Indifferent
and the object of indifference. She occupied
herself with the business of her estate, and
with the wants of the neighboring poor;
but she was unsuccessful in administering
her expenses, and her narrow revenue did
not allow her to give large satisfaction to her
charitable impulses. After some years of
seclusion and effort she began to dream of
liberty, of wealth-in a word of trying her
fortunes in Paris. She felt power within
her for which she had found no adequate
task. She speaks vaguely, too, Of Being
platonically loved, and loving in like man
ner, absent for most of the year, and seen
only for few days at long intervals, whose
correspondence had added new influence
to her life. This attenuated relation was,
however, broken before she made her essay
of new life. Her half brother, Hippolyte,
brought to Nohsnt habit of jovialty which
soon degenersted into chronic intemperance;
and though she does not accuse her husband
of participation in this vice, or, indeed, of
any wrong toward her, she yet makes US uu-
derstand that an occasional escape fran No.
hant became to her almost a matter of ne
cessity. She, therefore, made arrangements,
with her husbands free consent, to pass al
ternately three months in Paris aud three
months at home, for an indefinite period; and
leaving Maurice in good hands, and the little
Solange, her daughter, for a short time only,
| she came TO Paris in the winter, with the in
tention of writing.
HER MALE ATTIRE.
Her hopes and pretensons were at first
very modest. 1t had been agreed that her
husband should pay her an annual pension of
fifteen hundred francs. She would have been
we'll satisfied to earn like sum by her lit
erary efforts. She established herself in q
small mdnsdrds, a sort of garret, and managed
| IN fnr hiob rot
laDge could be made comfortable. She
washed and ironed her fine linen with her
own hands. Not finding literary employ
ment at once, and her slender salary running
very low, she adopted male attire for awhile,
as she says, because she was too poor to dress
herself suitably in any other. The fashion
of the period was favorable to her design.
Men wore long square skirted overcoats,
down TO the heels. With one of these, and
trowsers to match, with a gray hat and large
woolen cravst, she might easily pass for q
| young student.
81 can not express the pleasure my boots
gave me. would gladly have slept with
| them on. With these little iron-shod heels
stood firm on the pavement. l flew from
one end ofParis to the other. l could have
made the circuit of the world thus attired.
Besides, my clothes did not fear spelling.
| ran about in all weathers; | came back at
all hours; | went to the pit of every theater;
! no one paid me any attention or suspected
my disguise. Besides that, l wore it with
| ease; the entire want of coquetry in my
costume and physiognomy disarmed all sus~
| picion. was too i'll dressed, and my man.
ner was too simple, to attract or fix attention.
Women know little how to disguise them
selves, even upon the stage. They are un-
willing to sacrifice the slenderness of their
waists, the smallness of their feet, the pretti-
ness of their movements, the brilliancy of
their eyes; and it is by all these, neverthe-
less, it is especially by the look, that they
might avoid easy detection. There is a way
of gliding in everywhere without causing
any one to turn around, and of speaking in
a low, unmodualed tone which does not
| sound like flute in the ears which may hear
| you. For the rest, in order not to be re-
marked as man, you must already have the
habit of not making yourself remarked as a
| woman"
! This travesty, our heroine tells us, was of
| short duration; it answered the convenience
of some months of poverty and obscurity
its traditions did not psss away SO soon; ten
years later, her son, in his beardless Adde'S
| cence, was often taken for her, and some
times amused himself by indulging the error
in those who accosted him. But in the
| greatly changed circumstances in which che
soon found herself the disguise became USE
| less ana undVdlllnB. lLS economy was nc
longer needed, and the face of its wearer was
soon too well known to be concealed by hat
or coat collar.
| HER WORKS.
She has seen the poverty and insincerity
of society; she has quarreled with what she
calls the shsms of sacred things, the merely
conventional marriage, the god Of bigotry
and hypocrisy, the government of oppression
and fraud; but she ends by recognizing snG
demanding the marriage of heart, the god OIL
enlightened faith, the government of order
and progress. Responding to the dominant
chord of the nineteenth century, she strOVe
to exalt individuality above socislity, aud
passion above decorum and usage. Nor
would she allow any Worlds Congress oil
| morals TO settle the delicate limits between
these opposing vital forces, between what
we owe to ourselves and what we owe tc
Others If there be a divine of passion, fol
which it is noble to suffer and sacrifice, there
is also deeper divine of duty, far trans
cending the other, both in sacrifice and re
ward. To this divine, too often obscured tC
all of us, her later life increasingly render
homage; and to its gentle redemption ou
loving, plying hesrts-the more loving, thu
more plying for her stOry-are glad Il
| leave her.
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