Litchfield enquirer., 1877-08-09

LoVEAND PASSION. Miss Austen ana
 Sir Walter Scott, Dickens and Thackeray, Hawthorne and. George Eliot have all rep. resented young people in love- with each
 other: but no one of them has, to the
 best of my recoll9ction, described LaDy-
 thing that can be called passion-putl it into motion before us, and shown us it's various paces. To say this is to say at the same time that these writers have
 spared us much that we consider disa- greeable, and that George Sand has AaE spared us; but 1t is to say furthermore
 that few2persons would resort to English. prose fiction for any information concern ing the forces of the heart-for any ideas upon them. It is George Sands merit that she has given us ideas upon them-that she has enlarged the novel readers Eeon- oeption of fthsm. aud proved hsrself in all that relates to them an authority. Thls is a great d6aEsfsaos 5uo dti# h7gss@2 t'tsne os s From this standpoint Miss Austen,
 Walter Scott, and Dickens will appear to have omitted the erotic sentiment al-
 together, and George Eliot will seem to have treated it with singular austerity, Strangely loveless, seenin this light are
 those large, comprehensive fctlons,
 ''Middlemarch" and tsDaniel Deronda. !" They seem to foreign readersy probably. like vast, cold, commodious, respectable rooms, through whose, window panes, one sees snow covered landscape and across whose acres 'ofgsoher-hned carpet one looks in vain for Q fre-piace or fire.
 The distinction between svirtuous and vicious, love is not particularly insisted upon tbynG George Sand. In her view love is always love. and always of divine es- senceands of aennobling effect.ss rn sasl5 lsf
 The largest life possible isgt hold one s self open to ansunlimited expeSience of it. This, I believe. was. Mme. Sand prac- tice, asit certainly was her theorv--a the- ory to which one of her novels. at least, is dedicatetl., ssssLucrezia Floriani" is the history of lady who, ia the way of love, takes every thing that comes along, and who sets forth her philosophy of the matter with infinite grace and felicity. It is probably fortunate for the world. that the ladies of Lucrezia's Floriani's dlspo- sition havenot, as general thing, her argumentative brilliancy. Mime. Sand $ plan was to be open to all experience, all convictions; only to keep the welfare oi the human race, ,~and especially of its humber members, we'll in mind, and to trust that ones moral and intellectual life would take form profitable to the same One was therefor not only to extend a great hospitality to love, but to interest one's self in religion and politics. This Mme. Sand did with great activity during the whole of the reign of Louis Philippe She had broken utterly with the church, but her disposition was skeptical, Her religions feeling, like all her feelings was powerful and voluminops, she had ar ideal of sort of ethearealized and fiber ated Christianity, in which unmarried ani affectionate couples might find an expan
 sion. Like all her feelings, too, her re gious sentiment vas militant; her idea! about love weredan-at6ack upon marriage her faith was m attack upon the chu fct and the clergy; her socialistic sympathies were an sssttaek upon all present ,poit ical arr6ngsments. < These things -kal took hold of her by turns-shook he
 hard, aasit were, and dropped her, leav ing her to be played upon by some new inspiration, then, income eases returned to her and took possassions of Aer afresh and sounded another tune. -Henr, James, Qstke Qola3y,T LIT r
 It is very hard to convince bald-head ed man that flies are sent into this wor., for our good. sssi 4 'sss 4ifI hhs