George SAND to Victor HUGO: "My novels are herbarium pages..."

George Sand (1804.1876)

Autograph letter signed to Victor Hugo.

Four pages in-8° on paper in his number.

Nohant, February 22, 1862.

“My novels are herbarium pages and if you like them, I am happy and proud”

Very beautiful letter from George Sand to Hugo full of literary reveries.

“A memory of you, Sir, is a good fortune, and better than that, it is a consolation that comes in the midst of mourning. We have just lost a child who, through my heart, was part of my family, and your voice is even more dear to me in the pain. I was worried about you, I was first told that you were very ill, then very busy , and you do not speak to me at all about your health, or it is restored, or you do not deign to talk about it. to occupy. Allow me to ask you not to act this way towards yourself and not to forget yourself too much for others, since what others must want above all is to keep you for a long time. You ask me where I am. Still in the countryside, doing natural history and a thousand intimate things with my son who took a big trip last summer. I cultivate on my own, my little literary garden as Dumas says , and the expression pleases me very much, as I am in love with botany. My novels are herbarium pages and if you like them, I am happy and proud of them , but not so intoxicated as to delude myself about the usefulness of what we are free to publish in these times In France. My tendency to intellectual strolling is perhaps a state grace, since it puts me to sleep on the little that I am. But for me to feel like I'm living a little better, others need to do great things, and I'm impatiently awaiting a new ray from you . This little garden needs big bursts of sunlight, and it's not me who can give it that. Work then, publish then, and above all live long by living a lot at the same time , like these great forces of nature which are always renewed by the emission of their power. Thank you for your good letter. Remind me of Madame Hugo, tell your son that his Shakespeare satisfies and charms me – and you, Sir, believe in my devotion as great as my admiration . George Sand. Nohant February 22, 1862.”

Sand responds here to a letter from Hugo dated February 18: “Where are you? where will this letter find you? Is it in Nohant? is it in Paris? Do you sometimes think of a distant friend whom you have never seen and who is seriously and deeply attached to you?..."

A few days after this letter, Hugo published his masterpiece, Les Misérables .