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6 The Revolution 1 (1870)

handle is hein.peggy/revol0006 and id is 1 raw text is: What therefore God hath Jol <0 o Q twt0ct man Put asunder. VOL. VI.--NO. 1. NEW YORK, THURSDAY, JULY 7, 1870. WHOLE NO. 131. A PROBLEM. 4- My darling has a merry eye, And voice like silver bells: How shall I win her, prithee, say- By what magic spells ? it I frown she shakes her head, If I weep she smiles; Time would fall me to recount All her wilful wiles. She flouts me so-she slings me so- Yet will not let me stir- In vain I try to pass her by, • My little cicsnut bur. When I yield to every whim 8he straight begins to pout. Tell me Low to read my love, How to find her outI For flowers she gives me thistle blooms- Her turtle doves are crows- I am the groaning weather-vane, And she the wind that blows. My little love I My teazing love! Was woman made for man- A io;e that blossomed from his aide ? Believe it-those who can. I went to sleep-I'm sure of it- Some luckless summer morn; A rib was taken from my side, And of it made a thorn. But still I seek by some fend art To link it to my life. Come, solve my problem, married men! Teach me to win my wife. LoUlsa CHANDLER M ULTON. MY CREED. I HOLD that Christian grace abounds Where charity :a seon ; that when We climb to heaven, 'Ls on the rounds Of love to men. I hold all else named piety A Bolfish scheme, a vain pretence. Where centre is not, can there be Circumference? This I moreover hold, and dare Affirm where'er my rhyme may go, Whatever things be sweet or fair, Love makes them so; Whether it be the lullabies That charm to rest the nestling bird, Or that sweet confldenco of sighs, And blushes without word; Whether the dazzling and the flush O softly sumptuous garden bowers, Or by some cabin door or bush - Of ragged flowors. 'Tis not the white phylactery, Nor stubborn fast, or s'ated prayers, To make us saints; we judge the tree By what it bears. And when a man can live apart From work, on theoloulo trut ; know the blood abhut his h'eart Is dry as dust, AL1011 I . GEORGE SAND AA1D TILE MARRIAGE QUESTION. BY EUGENE BENSON. The extracts we have given from her novels sufficiently show the lucid intel- ligence, the moral indignation, and the bold affirmations of George Sand in the name and interest of her sex. But lest they be set aside as the language of her dramatic personages, and as such, speaking from unreal or excep- tional situations, we will reproduce hero some passages from George Sand's admirable letter to M Nisard. It is an eloquent and sustained piece of writing, and serves well to give us a just idea of the dignity and force of George Sand as the advocate of her sex : GEOGBE SAND TO A. M. NISARD. Sir : There are very few criticisms that pay us for accepting what is praiseworthy In them, or for rebuk- ing what is erroneous in them. If I receive with grati- tude what your criticism has of urbanity, and if I try to oppose what it has of severity, it ts that I find in it, as well as talent End light, a great fund of tolerance and good faith. If the question with me were one of satisfied vanity, I hould have but thanks to offer you, lor you grant to the imaginative part of my stories far more praise than it deserves. But the more I am touched. by your suf- frage, the more it is impossible for me to accept your blame in certain respects. And it Is to exculpate my- self-in spite of myself and contrary to my custom-that I commit the impertinence of speaking of myself to one whom I have not the honor to know. You say that hatred of marriage is the aim of all my books. Allow me to except from that number four or five, among them Lelia, which you place in the num- ber of pleadings against the social institution, and in which I do not know that one word is said of it. Lelia could also answer, among all my essays, to the reproach that you 'address meof wishing to rehabilitate the ego- tism of the senses, and to make metaphysics of matter. Indiana, when I wrote it, did not appear to me to be an apology for adultery. I believe in that novel, where there is no adultery committed, if I remember it aright. the lover-the king of my books as you witheringly call him -has a worse role than the husband. The Intimate Secretaryhas for its subject the sweetness of conjugal fid-lity. Andrea is neither against marriage nor for illicit love. Simon ends with marriage, and in Valentine, of which the denouement is neither novel nor skilful, the old fatality inervene to prevent the guilty woman from enjoying, by a second marriage, the happiness for which she had not known how to wait. In Leont it is- no shore in play than in Manota Lescaut--for which I tried, with a view purely artistic, to make a mate- where a bold and frantic love for an unworthy object, the servitude which a corrupted being imposes on a be- Ing, blind in his weakness, Is not presented in its re- suits in more engaging colors than in the novel of the Abbe Provost. Jacques remains, then, the only one which has been happy enough to receive from you some attention, and it certainly deserves more than any work of mine from a man as grave as you are. book, but not always the fault of the author. As an ar- tist he has grossly sinned ; his hand, without experi- ence and without measure, has betrayed his thought ; but as a man, he has not had the intention to mystify the public, nor to adulterate the principles of eternal good. What I a:copt as completely true In your judgment Is this : The ruin of husbands, suchas been the aim of the works of George Sand. Yes air, the ruin of husbands, such would have been 4ho object of my ambition had I felt the strength of be- ing a reformer ; but if I have succeeded badly in mak- ing myself understood, it is because I have not had that force, and because I have in me more of the nature of a poet, than of a legislator. I imagine, however, that the novel, like comedy, is a school of life, where the abuses, theiabsurdifies, theprejudica, the vices, of the time are the domain of a censure susceptible of taking every form. It has often happened to me to iiso the phrase social laws instead of the italicized words above, and I didn't dream one moment that there was danger in doing it. Who could suppose me to have the intention of remaking the laws of the country. I was astounded *hen a few St. Sinmonians, conscientious philanthropists, estimable and sincere seekers of the truth, asked me what I would 'put in the place of husbands? I an- swered them naively that it was marriage--in the same way [as in the place of priests who had so much com. promised religion', I believe we ought to place religion. It is true that I have committed a great fault against language, when, speaking of abuses, and absurdities, and prejudices, and vices of society, I expressed myself collectively and said society. I also have been wrong to say so often marriage Instead of mareied persons. All those who know me, little or much, have not mtstAken my meaning, because they never dreamed that I meant to remake the constitutional charter. I thought tho public would occupy itself so little with my individual self that no one would think of blaming me for the use of words, or exercise over the life of a poor poet, in the seclusion of his attic, a sort of nquisi. tion, to force him to justify his actions, his thoupits, his beliefs, to maxe him define the exact sense of expressions more or less vague, but always placed, perhaps, so as to explain themselves. It is possible that in this the public has not played a very grave role, dud that the virile party pretending to be outraged, yielded Itself to a little puerile gossip over a subject littlo.,eWorthy of so sad an honor. But what is certain is, that I have been wrong not to be perfectly clear, prectaq, logical, correct. Alas, sir, I reproach myselt every day with a very grave wrong, It is not to be either Bossuet nor Montesquieu ; but, I confess to you. I have little hope of correcting myself of it. Another serious reproach that you address to me is this ; It would be perhaps more heroic to whoever has not a good lot, not to scandalize the world With his mis- fortunes in making of a private case a social question, etc. The whole of this paragraph Is nobly thought and nobly written. It Is not the sentiment expressed that will find me rebellious. I place patience and abnega- tion above everything, and I nawer nothing to what concerns me personally in this reproach. Were I writ- ing to a priest, perhaps the recital of a general confes- slon would victoriously win absolution, at the same time rebuke and penance. But there has been only Jean Jacques who had the right to confess in pubhlc, therefore I shall answer in a general manner. , . It seems to me there is a great deal of protenosionto abnegation and patience in the world. It 'Seems to me. we do not live in an ago of independence and unlimited It may be that Jacques proves all that you have found pride ; I do not see that III uisi 1311o 1 ,0,. -- 1-1 iIt hostile to domestic order. It Is tu that the very vivid sentiment of their personal dignity, nor that they Ippostiehas beon found in It, and etlter-tay be right, need be urged to bend both knees a little lower than W a book, however futile It may b,-does not prove they do to- considerations and Interests which are clearly; conoluvolvely, without; co tatlon, and with-' nelther religaon, nor morality, nor order, nor virtue. Oihworwhit it ams to pro vb. t1is ' rut ok. tho: .Z to B 01; iasO o X do Nlot 400 that tho w1 g 0? toa, '/a .e

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