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

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 like pages from a herbarium, and if you like them, I am happy and proud."

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

“A memory of you, sir, is a blessing, and better than that, a consolation that arrives in the midst of grief. We have just lost a child who, in spirit, was family to me, and your voice is even dearer to me in my sorrow. I have been worried about you; I was told first that you were very ill, then very busy , and you don't speak to me at all about your health—either it has recovered, or you simply don't bother to attend to it. Allow me to ask you not to act this way toward yourself and not to neglect yourself so much for the sake of others, since what others should want above all is to keep you with them for a long time. You ask me where I am. Still in the country, studying natural history and doing a thousand other small, intimate things with my son, who took a long trip last summer.” I cultivate, for my own benefit, my little literary garden, as Dumas said , and I like the expression very much, being a lover of botany. My novels are like pages from a herbarium , and if you like them, I am happy and proud , but not so intoxicated as to delude myself about the usefulness of what one is free to publish in France these days. My tendency toward intellectual idleness is perhaps a blessing of the state, since it lulls me to sleep regarding my own insignificance. But for me to feel a little more alive, others must do great things, and I eagerly await a new ray of light from you . This little garden needs great bursts of sunshine, and I am not the one who can provide them. So work, so publish, and above all, live long by living much at once , like those great forces of nature that are always renewed by the emission of their power. Thank you for your kind letter. Remind Madame Hugo of me, tell your son that her Shakespeare pleases and delights me – and you, sir, believe me in my devotion, which is as great as my admiration . George Sand. Nohant, February 22, 1862.

Sand is responding here to a letter from Hugo dated February 18th: “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 devoted to you?…”

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