Learning Go Web Development Build

Frontendtobackend Web Applications Using The

Best Practices Of A Powerful Fast And
Easytodeploy Server Language Nathan Kozyra
download
https://ebookbell.com/product/learning-go-web-development-build-
frontendtobackend-web-applications-using-the-best-practices-of-a-
powerful-fast-and-easytodeploy-server-language-nathan-
kozyra-52767238

Explore and download more ebooks at ebookbell.com

Here are some recommended products that we believe you will be
interested in. You can click the link to download.

Learning Go Web Development 1st Edition Narayan Prusty

https://ebookbell.com/product/learning-go-web-development-1st-edition-
narayan-prusty-231211392

Learning Go Programming Build Scalable Nextgen Web Application Using

Golang English Edition Shubhangi Agarwal

https://ebookbell.com/product/learning-go-programming-build-scalable-
nextgen-web-application-using-golang-english-edition-shubhangi-
agarwal-34654784

Learning Typescript 5 Go Beyond Javascript To Build More Maintainable

And Robust Web Applications For Largescale Projects Anna Richter

https://ebookbell.com/product/learning-typescript-5-go-beyond-
javascript-to-build-more-maintainable-and-robust-web-applications-for-
largescale-projects-anna-richter-58738372

Learning Go An Idiomatic Approach To Realworld Go Programming 2nd

Edition 2nd Jon Bodner

https://ebookbell.com/product/learning-go-an-idiomatic-approach-to-
realworld-go-programming-2nd-edition-2nd-jon-bodner-54905318
Learning Go Jon Bodner Jon Bodner

https://ebookbell.com/product/learning-go-jon-bodner-jon-
bodner-30066524

Learning Go Programming 1st Edition Vladimir Vivien

https://ebookbell.com/product/learning-go-programming-1st-edition-
vladimir-vivien-42283810

Learning Go Programming Vladimir Vivien

https://ebookbell.com/product/learning-go-programming-vladimir-
vivien-11083158

Learning Go An Idiomatic Approach To Realworld Go Programming

Converted Jon Bodner

https://ebookbell.com/product/learning-go-an-idiomatic-approach-to-
realworld-go-programming-converted-jon-bodner-230408440

Learning Go 2nd Edition Early Release 2nd First Early Release Jon
Bodner

https://ebookbell.com/product/learning-go-2nd-edition-early-
release-2nd-first-early-release-jon-bodner-46867700
Learning Go Web Development

Build frontend-to-backend web applications using the

best practices of a powerful, fast, and easy-to-deploy
server language

Nathan Kozyra

BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Learning Go Web Development

Copyright © 2016 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written
permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in
critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy
of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is
sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt
Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages
caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the
companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals.
However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: April 2016

Production reference: 1220416

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place
35 Livery Street
Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78528-231-7

www.packtpub.com
 Credits

Author Project Coordinator

Nathan Kozyra Shweta H Birwatkar

Reviewer Proofreader
Karthik Nayak Safis Editing

Commissioning Editor Indexer

Ashwin Nair Rekha Nair

Acquisition Editor Graphics

Divya Poojari Abhinash Sahu

Content Development Editor Production Coordinator

Kajal Thapar Manu Joseph

Technical Editor Cover Work

Devesh Chugh Manu Joseph

Copy Editor
Sneha Singh
 About the Author

Nathan Kozyra is a seasoned web developer, with nearly two decades

of professional software development experience. Since Go's initial release,
he has been drawn to the language for its power, elegance, and usability.

He has a strong interest in web development, music production, and machine

learning. He is married and has a two-year-old son.
 About the Reviewer

Karthik Nayak is currently studying at BMSIT, Bangalore. He has been

continuously contributing to Git ever since he took part in GSOC 2015. He has
also been working on Linux kernel and taking part in the Eudyptula challenge.
He learned Go to get familiar with the Web and to know how backends are
generally designed.
 www.PacktPub.com

Support files, eBooks, discount offers, and more

For support files and downloads related to your book, please visit www.PacktPub.com.

Did you know that Packt offers eBook versions of every book published, with PDF
and ePub files available? You can upgrade to the eBook version at www.PacktPub.com
and as a print book customer, you are entitled to a discount on the eBook copy. Get in
touch with us at [email protected] for more details.

At www.PacktPub.com, you can also read a collection of free technical articles,

sign up for a range of free newsletters and receive exclusive discounts and offers
on Packt books and eBooks.
TM

https://www2.packtpub.com/books/subscription/packtlib

Do you need instant solutions to your IT questions? PacktLib is Packt's online digital
book library. Here, you can search, access, and read Packt's entire library of books.

Why subscribe?
• Fully searchable across every book published by Packt
• Copy and paste, print, and bookmark content
• On demand and accessible via a web browser

Free access for Packt account holders

If you have an account with Packt at www.PacktPub.com, you can use this to access
PacktLib today and view 9 entirely free books. Simply use your login credentials for
immediate access.
 Table of Contents
Preface v
Chapter 1: Introducing and Setting Up Go 1
Installing Go 2
Structuring a project 4
Code conventions 4
Importing packages 6
Handling private repositories 6
Dealing with versioning 7
Introducing the net package 8
Hello, Web 8
Summary 10
Chapter 2: Serving and Routing 11
Serving files directly 11
Basic routing 12
Using more complex routing with Gorilla 13
Redirecting requests 16
Serving basic errors 17
Summary 20
Chapter 3: Connecting to Data 21
Connecting to a database 22
Creating a MySQL database 22
Using GUID for prettier URLs 28
Handling 404s 29
Summary 30

[i]
Table of Contents

Chapter 4: Using Templates 31

Introducing templates, context, and visibility 32
HTML templates and text templates 33
Displaying variables and security 35
Using logic and control structures 37
Summary 42
Chapter 5: Frontend Integration with RESTful APIs 43
Setting up the basic API endpoint 44
RESTful architecture and best practices 45
Creating our first API endpoint 46
Implementing security 47
Creating data with POST 49
Modifying data with PUT 53
Summary 58
Chapter 6: Sessions and Cookies 59
Setting cookies 59
Capturing user information 60
Creating users 61
Enabling sessions 62
Letting users register 63
Letting users log in 64
Initiating a server-side session 65
Creating a store 66
Utilizing flash messages 69
Summary 72
Chapter 7: Microservices and Communication 75
Introducing the microservice approach 76
Pros and cons of utilizing microservices 77
Understanding the heart of microservices 77
Communicating between microservices 78
Putting a message on the wire 78
Reading from another service 82
Summary 83

[ ii ]
 Table of Contents

Chapter 8: Logging and Testing 85

Introducing logging in Go 86
Logging to IO 86
Multiple loggers 86
Formatting your output 88
Using panics and fatal errors 89
Introducing testing in Go 90
Summary 94
Chapter 9: Security 95
HTTPS everywhere – implementing TLS 96
Preventing SQL injection 98
Protecting against XSS 100
Preventing cross-site request forgery (CSRF) 102
Securing cookies 103
Using the secure middleware 104
Summary 105
Chapter 10: Caching, Proxies, and Improved Performance 107
Identifying bottlenecks 108
Implementing reverse proxies 109
Implementing caching strategies 111
Using Least Recently Used 111
Caching by file 112
Caching in memory 115
Implementing HTTP/2 115
Summary 116
Index 117

[ iii ]
 Preface
Thank you for purchasing this book. We hope that through the examples and
projects in this book, you'll move from being a Go web development neophyte to
someone who's able to take on serious projects intended for production. As such,
this book tackles a lot of web development topics at a relatively high level. By
the end of the book, you should be able to implement a very simple blog that
accommodates display, authentication, and commenting with an eye towards
performance and security.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Introducing and Setting up Go, starts the book by showing you how to set up
your environment and dependencies so that you can create web applications in Go.

Chapter 2, Serving and Routing, talks about producing responsive servers that react
to certain web endpoints. We'll explore the virtues of various URL routing options
beyond net/http.

Chapter 3, Connecting to Data, implements database connections to start acquiring data

to be presented and manipulated using our website.

Chapter 4, Using Templates, covers the template packages to show how we can present
the data that we're using and modifying to the end user.

Chapter 5, Frontend Integration with Restful APIs, takes a detailed look at how to create
an underlying API to drive both the presentation and the functionality.

Chapter 6, Sessions and Cookies, maintains state with our end users, thus allowing
them to retain information, such as authentication, from page to page.

[v]
Preface

Chapter 7, Microservices and Communication, tears apart some of our functionality to

be reimplemented as microservices. This chapter will serve as a light introduction
to the microservice ethos.

Chapter 8, Logging and Testing, talks about how a mature application will require
both testing and extensive logging to debug and catch issues before they make it
to production.

Chapter 9, Security, will focus on the best practices for web development in general
and review what Go provides for the developer in this space.

Chapter 10, Caching, Proxies, and Improved Performance, reviews the best options
for ensuring that there are no bottlenecks or other issues that could negatively
impact performance.

What you need for this book

Go excels at cross-platform compatibility, so any modern computers running a
standard Linux flavor, OS X or Windows should be enough to get started. You can
find a full list of requirements at https://golang.org/dl/. In this book, we are
working with a minimum of Go 1.5, but any newer release should be fine.

Who this book is for

This book is intended for developers who are new to Go but have previous
experience of building web applications and APIs. If you are aware of HTTP
protocols, RESTful architecture, general templating and HTML, you should
be well prepared to take on the projects in this book.

Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different
kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of
their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions,
pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows:
"For example, to get started as quickly as possible, you can create a simple hello.go
file anywhere you like and compile without issue."

[ vi ]
 Preface

A block of code is set as follows:

func Double(n int) int {

if (n == 0) {
return 0
} else {
return n * 2
}
}

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the
relevant lines or items are set in bold:
routes := mux.NewRouter()
routes.HandleFunc("/page/{guid:[0-9a-zA\\-]+}", ServePage)
routes.HandleFunc("/", RedirIndex)
routes.HandleFunc("/home", ServeIndex)
http.Handle("/", routes)

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the
screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "The first
time you hit your URL and endpoint, you'll see We just set the value!, as shown in
the following screenshot."

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tips and tricks appear like this.

Reader feedback
Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about
this book—what you liked or disliked. Reader feedback is important for us as it helps
us develop titles that you will really get the most out of.

[ vii ]
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
the rate of infant mortality reaches 40, and even 45, per mille. In
corresponding English districts it does not rise above 20.
For the last twenty-five years individual thinkers have proclaimed the
importance of organizing German colonies to carry off this surplus
population regularly, of preventing its absorption into foreign
peoples, and of utilizing it for the common weal. For years their
exhortations remained like the voice of one crying in the wilderness.
The country was engaged in consolidating its national existence; a
superficial glance revealed the fact that the more desirable spaces of
the earth’s surface were filled up, and the official classes looked
upon the proposal askance. Proud of the great work its industry and
intelligence had already achieved, the Beamtenstand was confident
of its ability to solve the newer problems by re-adjusting the
relations of labor and capital, and by modifying the social
organization.
The task has proved more formidable than was anticipated, and the
attitude of the Socialists has disabused the bureaucracy of its
confidence. In opposition even to the enticing schemes of the Iron
Chancellor they show themselves determined to insist on their own
inadmissible scheme of social re-construction. Nor do they manifest
more favor towards the colonial panacea; some of their leaders,
indeed, have denounced it in the bitterest terms, both as
impracticable and as an ignis fatuus likely to lead the nation astray
from the true path of salvation. On the other hand, the commercial
classes are warm in its support, and German conservatism generally
hopes for the effect which a Greater Germany may possibly exercise
in diverting the imagination of the working classes from internal
Utopias.
But the difficulties in the way of establishing transmarine agricultural
colonies, and this is the central aim of German aspirations, are very
great. Germany has to make up the lee-way of two centuries, to
recover the start which England obtained while she was torn and
exhausted by recurring war. The suitable zones of the world are
apparently already occupied, and neither the acquisition of islands in
the Pacific, nor placing barren coasts or fever-swamps in Africa
under the Imperial ægis, will serve her purpose. Popular aspirations,
indeed, point to a South African Empire, incorporating the Transvaal
and Cape Colony at our expense, and influential papers do not
hesitate to air these aspirations. But neither these suggestions nor
the more practicable demand for a Germany in South America have
yet received the imprimatur of responsible politicians.
IV.
A like necessity for making up lost lee-way dominates the
simultaneous movement towards commercial extension. Germany
entered the commercial arena long after England had covered the
globe with the network of her shipping routes and her credit system.
To reduce the advantage gained, and to bring up their own lines to a
level, a subvention is to be paid out of the national revenues. An
examination of the four subsidized lines originally proposed, to
China, Australia, Bombay, and South Africa, shows that they were
meant to compete directly with existing English routes. In the same
way the projected Transmarine Bank is to contend with the
ubiquitous English banking and credit organization, of which the
Germans are forced to avail themselves. Indeed, the Cologne
Gazette has lately computed that by the use of English carrying
ships, and by the payment of bank commissions, &c., Germany
contributes a tax of £25,000 a day to the wealth of this country.
Handicapped, however, as German commerce has been, it has lately
made great strides over-seas, thanks to its distinguishing qualities of
thrift and industry. German competition is felt severely in the Far
East, and has cut down profits at Hongkong to a minimum. And
though the bulk of the foreign trade of China remains with the
English, the coasting trade is rapidly passing into German hands. In
South America they have secured a still larger share of her trade;
their agents are active in the Pacific; and, besides the new territory
of Lüderitzland, more than sixty factories have recently been
established along the African coast, from Sierra Leone to Ambriz,
while German influence had apparently gained a temporary
advantage in Zanzibar. The demand for new markets is the more
urgent now in Germany because the largest of her previous markets,
Russia, is being closed against her. Not content with having
sheltered themselves already behind an almost prohibitive tariff, the
Moscow manufacturers, alarmed at the success with which their
German rivals have transferred their plant into Russian Poland, in
spite of the difficulties and expense, now clamor for a Customs line
to be drawn between the Polish provinces and inner Russia.
The loud demand for new markets is not, however, really so urgent,
or sustained by such pressing causes, as the cry for colonial
settlements. It may be doubted whether Germany’s penurious soil
possesses in itself sufficient mineral and other resources ever to
allow her to contend with this country as the great manufacturer of
the raw products of the world.
It is rather England who must seek new outlets for her commerce,
as her old markets are exhausted or shared among new competitors,
while the amount of human energy she supplies, and its more than
proportionate productiveness, steadily increase, owing to acquired
skill and improved machinery. Germany’s first need, on the other
hand, is for habitable and agricultural colonies, where her surplus
population may be planted, and may not be lost to her. There is,
therefore, no immediate cause of hostile rivalry; and German
expansion, with its orderly and commercial instinct, may be regarded
as a valuable influence in the spread of civilization.
V.
In discussing German movements, however, it is impossible, at the
present time, to omit reckoning with the views of the great
statesman who controls her destinies. Prince Bismarck has been
variously represented as reluctantly putting himself at the head of a
colonial agitation which he really deprecates, and as using it merely
in order to discomfit domestic opponents, or to make foreign
Governments feel his weight abroad. No doubt these last two
reasons have had some effect in shaping the Chancellor’s actual
policy. But Prince Bismarck appears to have needed no prompting for
appreciating the necessity of colonial expansion, and to have given it
his serious reflection long before the present Colonization Society
met at Eisenach. In the days of the North German Confederacy, the
rising Minister lent all his influence to the proposals of the firm of
Godeffroys Bros. for the annexation of the Samoa group. A scheme
was drawn up, dividing the land among military settlers, grants of
arms were made from the Royal Arsenals, and the Hertha the first
continental iron-clad which steamed through the Suez Canal, was
despatched to give a vigorous support. Before the last
arrangements, however, were completed, the Franco-German war
intervened, with the internal consolidation and the diplomatic
struggles which succeeded it.
But Prince Bismarck had not abandoned his early ideas; he was
waiting till the time was ripe. In 1875 he made a tentative effort,
without success, to wring a guarantee from the Reichstag for a new
South Sea Company. Next year he was pressed to give his support to
a proposed railway from Pretoria to the sea. He refused, but in
private made the following significant statement to the intermediate
agent:—
“The colonial question is one I have studied for years. I am
convinced Germany cannot go on for ever without colonies, but as
yet I fail to perceive deep traces of such a movement in the country.”
Those deep traces have now been revealed, and it remains to be
seen whether the Iron Chancellor will not be able, in spite of the
apparently insuperable objects in his way, to give practical effect to
the aspirations of the German nation, and to his own earnest
conviction.—National Review.
 GEORGE SAND.
On the 8th June, 1876, George Sand, the great French novelist, died
at her château of Nohant in Berri. The strong right hand that for
forty years had been used in the service of her countrymen,
sometimes to delight, sometimes to admonish, had dropped the pen
in death; the noble heart that, with all its faults and all its deviations
from the strict line of social conventionality, had yet ever sided with
the weak against the strong, the oppressed against the oppressor,
had ceased to beat, and even in the frivolous, heartless capital
where she had lived, men went about knowing they had sustained
an irreparable loss and that a blank had been made in their lives that
would never be filled.
She was the last of that illustrious fraternity of chosen spirits that
flourished fifty years ago in France, of whom Victor Hugo is the sole
survivor. Lamartine, Théophile Gautier, Michelet, Alfred de Musset,
Balzac, George Sand, were the names that then resounded in the
literary world of Paris, while now Emile Zola and Alexandre Dumas
fils are its principal adornments. George Sand and Balzac’s novels
form as it were the connecting link between the world of romance of
the eighteenth century and our own. She has carried the idealism of
Jean Jacques’ “Nouvelle Héloïse,” and the poetry of Chateaubriand’s
“Renée” into our prosaic nineteenth century, while Balzac presented
to his contemporaries as vivid reflections of life as any to be found in
the pages of “Manon Lescaut” or “Gil Blas.” The authoress of
“Indiana” is the high-priestess of the romantic school; the author of
“Le Père Goriot” the exponent of the realistic.

“Love must be idealised in fiction,” she says in the “Histoire de

ma Vie.” “We must give it all the force, and all the aspirations
we have felt ourselves, besides all the pain we have seen and
suffered. Under no circumstances must it ever be debased; it
 must triumph or die, and we must not be afraid to invest it with
an importance in life, which lifts it altogether above ordinary
sentiments.”

Balzac, her fellow-worker, used to say: “You seek men as they ought
to be; I take them as they are. I idealise and exaggerate their vices;
you their virtues.”
By further study of her life and correspondence, we shall know how
true this observation is, and how this striving after ideal perfection
not only influenced her literary work, but caused so much of that
eccentricity and rebellion against social laws which shocked her
contemporaries and has made her name a by-word in the mouths of
those who could not appreciate her genius, or realise the tenderness
and nobility of soul that were hidden under her unfeminine exterior.
The publication of her letters (looked forward to with so much
impatience) has recently taken place, and the veil has been still
further torn from those domestic relations well known to have been
unhappy. Were they written by any one but the authoress of “Elle et
Lui,” we should have regretted their appearance as indiscreet, and
wanting in loyalty towards one no longer able to protest against the
secrets of her life being dragged forth to amuse the crowd. A
frequent charge however brought against George Sand is the want
of delicacy she has shown in taking the world into her confidence.
“Charity towards others, dignity towards myself, sincerity before
God,” is the motto prefixed to the “Histoire de ma Vie.” She certainly
is both charitable and sincere, but we must agree with her enemies
in thinking it an open question whether, so far as concerns herself,
she has observed a dignified reserve. Indeed, on various occasions
she defiantly proclaimed, “That all hypocrisy was distasteful to her,
and that it would have been the recognition of those acts as
irregularities which were but the legitimate exercise of her liberty,
had she been ashamed of them or endeavored to keep them secret.”
The autobiography was unfortunately revised and corrected in 1869,
and considerably spoilt in the process. These letters are the more
interesting, therefore, as throwing sudden lights on varying moods,
and showing the rejection of many heterodox opinions at first, which
were afterwards accepted without hesitation.
“La vie ressemble bien plutôt à un roman, qu’un roman à la vie,” she
says, and certainly no heroine of one of her own romances could be
more interesting as a study than she is, with her gentleness and
“bavardages de mère” one moment, and her violent casting off of all
domestic duties the next. Touching appeals are made to Jules
Boucoiran, the tutor, to tell her whether her children ever mention
her name, and directly after there is the following exultant
declaration:

“Ainsi, à l’heure qu’il est, à une lieue d’ici, quatre mille bêtes me
croient à genoux dans le sac, et dans la cendre, pleurant mes
péchés comme Madeleine. Le réveil sera terrible. Le lendemain
de ma victoire, je jette ma béquille, je passe au galop de mon
cheval aux quatre coins de la ville.”

The first letter of the “Correspondence” is written in 1812, when

Mademoiselle Aurore Dupin was a happy child of eight, living at her
ancestral home, the old château of Nohant.
Already she is insubordinate and high-spirited, delighted at being
able to deceive her grandmother by carrying on a secret
correspondence with her mother, and hiding the letters behind the
portrait of the old Dupin in the entrance-hall. “Que j’ai de regret de
ne pouvoir te dire adieu. Tu vois combien j’ai de chagrin de te
quitter. Adieu; pense à moi, et sois que je ne t’oublierai point.—Ta
Fille. Tu mettras la réponse derrière le portrait du vieux Dupin.”
The last letter of the first volume is dated “La Châtre, 1836,” when
what she herself called the crisis of the “sixth lustrum” was over. The
celebrated voyage to Venice with Alfred de Musset had already been
made, the romance of “Elle et Lui” had been lived through and
written—the immortal passion which has been told and sung by both
sides for the benefit of the world, and which has now become a part
of the poetry of the nineteenth century, was already a thing of the
past; and she had come to the point, as she writes to her friend
Madame d’Agoult, of finding her greatest happiness in a state of
being where she neither thinks nor feels. “You, perhaps, are too
happy and too young to envy the lot of those shining white stones
which lie so cold, so calm, so dead, under the light of the moon. I
always salute them as I pass along the road in my solitary midnight
ride.” This volume comprises, therefore, all the most eventful periods
of her life, and whatever has since been published is only of
secondary interest.
George Sand was born in Paris in 1804. She was descended on her
father’s side from Maurice de Saxe, natural son of Augustus II., King
of Poland. Her father died in 1808, and she was brought up at the
château of Nohant close to La Châtre in Berri. She lived there until
she was thirteen, passing her days in the open air, sometimes
wandering through the woods and fields, with the peasant children
of the neighboring village, or more often sitting alone, under some
great tree, listening to the murmur of the river close by, and the
whisper of the wind amidst the leaves. Here she learnt that kindness
and simplicity of manner which always characterised her, and here
she contracted that love for communion with Nature which in her
wildest and most despairing moments never forsook her.

“Ah, that I could live amidst the calm of mountain solitudes,”

she exclaims, “morally and materially above the region of
storms! There to pass long hours in contemplation of the starry
heavens, listening to the mysterious sounds of nature,
possessing all that is grandest in creation united with the
possession of myself.”

At twelve she began to write, composing long stories about a hero to

whom, under the name of Corambe, she raised an altar of stones
and moss in the corner of the garden. For years she remained
faithful to Corambe and cherished the project of constructing a
poem or romance to celebrate his illustrious exploits.
At thirteen, her mother and grandmother, unable to agree upon the
subject of her education, determined to send her to a convent in
Paris.

“Conceive,” one of her biographers says, “the sadness of this

wild bird shut up in the cage of the English Augustines in the
‘Rue des Fossés-Saint-Victor.’ She wept tears of bitter regret for
the cool depths of woods, the sunny mornings, and dim quiet
evenings of her home.”

Comfort was soon found however in her work, and in the schoolgirl
friendships that she formed, some of which lasted her lifetime.
In 1820, when sixteen, she returned to Nohant. Her grandmother
died in the following year; and then, although often suffering from
her mother’s irritable and capricious temper, she seems to have
enjoyed perfect liberty: riding, walking, and reading; devouring
everything that came into her hands, from Thomas à Kempis to Jean
Jacques Rousseau. On one occasion, kneeling before the altar in the
chapel, she was seized with a paroxysm of devotion and talked of
becoming a nun. To this succeeded complete emancipation in her
religious opinions, and a refusal even to conform to the observances
of her Church. A quarrel with her confessor accomplished the
separation from orthodoxy. She became a deist, and remained so for
the rest of her life, making art her religion, and passing through all
the phases of pessimism and Saint-Simonianism that prevailed in her
day.
In 1822, to escape the solicitations of her mother, she consented to
marry Monsieur Dudevant, son of one of the barons of the Empire.
She describes in her autobiography how one evening, when sitting
outside Tortoni’s eating ices after the theatre, she heard a friend
(Madame Duplessis) say to her husband: “See, there is Casimir!”
Whereupon a slight, elegant young man of military bearing came up
to salute them. Her fate was sealed from that day. They were
married in September 1822, she being only eighteen. After paying a
few visits they returned to live at Nohant. The letters begin
consecutively after the birth of her first child, and are written at odd
times, and from different places—sometimes in the middle of the
night, while all the household were asleep, the lightning flashing and
the thunder rolling; sometimes in a garret overlooking a narrow little
street of the town of Châtre, at six o’clock in the morning, the
nightingales singing outside and the scent of a lilac-tree pervading
the air; sometimes at her grandmother’s old bureau in the hall at
Nohant, with all her family round her.
The portion of the “Correspondence” which will take readers most by
surprise is that describing the first years of her married life. There is
no desire here “to lose her identity in the great conscience of
humanity!” her heart seems perfectly satisfied bending over her
cradle, and her mind entirely occupied with the “concrete duties” of
manufacturing soothing syrups and amusing her children.

“My son is splendidly fat and fresh,” she writes to her mother.
“He has a bright complexion and determined expression, which
I must say is borne out by his character. He has six teeth which
he uses with great vigor, and he stands beautifully on his feet,
though too young to run alone.”

Casimir is mentioned now and then, and always with a certain

amount of affection. She is evidently attached to him through the
children, and relates how fond he is of her and them.
“Our dear papa,” she says, “is very much
taken up with his harvest. He has adopted a
mode of threshing out his corn, which accomplishes
in three weeks what used to occupy five
or six. He works very hard all day, and is off
rake in hand at daybreak. We women sit on
the heaps of corn reading and working for
hours together.”
She describes a carnival at Nohant in 1826, four years after her
marriage, when she sits up three nights a week dancing,
“Obligations which have to be accepted in life.” Obligations which
seem to be grateful enough to her, although she only amuses herself
by the light of three candles, with an orchestra composed of a
hurdy-gurdy and bagpipes.
Certain disturbing elements seem however, as the year goes on, to
agitate the domestic barometer. They make a journey to Bordeaux,
and there the society, although not brilliant, is more attractive than
that of Nohant—the prospect of returning to the “three candles and
the hurdy-gurdy” seems to frighten her—and she complains of
Casimir’s want of “intellectual” energy: “Paresseux de l’esprit, et
enragé des jambes.”
“Cold, wet, nothing keeps him at home; whenever he comes in it is
either to eat or to snore.” In writing about some commissions which
her mother has executed for her in Paris, she says: “Casimir asks me
to express his gratitude; it is a sentiment which we can still feel in
common.” Rustic duties pall upon her, her appetite and health fail,
she is reduced to “looking at the stars, instead of sleeping.” “My
existence is passed in a complete state of mental solitude
surrounded by unsympathetic, commonplace people, some of whom
deface their lives by coarse inebriety.” She here alludes to her
brother, Hippolyte, who destroyed his own and his wife’s happiness
by his drunken habits.
The only event that brightened her sadness was the arrival of a
young tutor for her children, M. Jules Boucoiran, who always, as she
says, remained her devoted friend and ally.
She thus whimsically relates an incident small in itself, but one that
made an impression on her owing to the existing circumstances:

“I was living in what used to be my grandmother’s boudoir,

because there was only one door, and no one could come in
unless I liked. My two children sleep in the room next to me.
 The boudoir was so small that I could hardly fit into it with all
my books. I therefore slept in a hammock, and wrote at an old
bureau, which I used in company with a cricket, who seeing me
so often had become perfectly tame. It lived on my wafers,
which I purposely chose white for fear of poisoning it. After
eating its meal on my paper as I wrote, it always went and sang
in its favorite drawer. One evening, not hearing it move, I
searched everywhere, but the only remains I found of my poor
friend were his hind legs. He never told me that he went out for
a walk every day, and the maid had crushed him when shutting
the window. I buried him in a datura flower, which I kept for
some time as a sacred relic. I could not get rid of a strange
foreboding that with the song of this little cricket my domestic
happiness had fled for ever.”

Meantime the artistic leaven was working within her. On one of her
flying visits to Paris she entered the Louvre and felt singularly “taken
possession of” by the beautiful pictures around her.

“I returned,” she says, “again and again, arriving early in the

morning and going away late in the evening. I was transported
into another world, and was haunted day and night by the
grand figures created by genius. The past and present were
revealed to me, I became classical and romantic at the same
time, without understanding the struggle between the two that
agitated the artistic world. I seemed to have acquired a
treasure, the existence of which I had never been aware of. My
spirit expanded, and when I left the gallery I walked through
the streets as in a dream.”

After this awakening of her intellectual nature she returned to

Nohant, more determined than ever to escape from her wretched
life, and to save her children from influences that might destroy
them in the future. Her first object was to endeavor to make money
enough to procure the means of existence. She tried everything,
translating, drawing, needlework, and at last discovered that she
could earn an humble pittance by painting flowers on wooden boxes.
To this pursuit she devoted herself for some time, believing it to be
the only trade for which she was fitted.
Meantime her domestic affairs came to a crisis sooner than she
expected. The cause is thus related to Jules Boucoiran:

“You know my home life, and how intolerable it is! You yourself
have often been astonished to see me raise my head the day
after I had been crushed to the earth. But there is a term to
everything. Events latterly have hastened the resolution which
otherwise I should not have been strong enough to take. No
one suspects anything; there has been no open quarrel. When
seeking for something in my husband’s desk I found a packet
addressed to myself. On it were written these words: ‘To be
opened after my death.’ I opened it however at once. What did I
find? imprecations, anathemas, insulting accusations, and the
word ‘perversity.’”

This discovery, she tells him, decided her to come to an arrangement

with her husband at once, by which she was to live the greater part
of the year in Paris with her children, spending a month or two of
the summer at Nohant. There were, no doubt, faults on both sides.
She herself confesses in her autobiography “that she was no saint,
and was often unjust, impetuous in her resolves, too hasty in her
judgments.” Wherever there are strong feelings and desires there
must be discord at times.

“Happy he who plants cabbages,” says she. “He has one foot on
the earth, and the other is only raised off it the height of the
spade. Unfortunately for me, I fear if I did plant cabbages I
should ask for a logical justification for my activity, and some
reason for the necessity of planting cabbages.”

Hers is not a nature that must be judged coldly. What right have we
to say that she was to clip the wings of her genius, pass her years in
the service of conventionality, and never seek the full development
of her artistic nature? When she left the home of her childhood with
pilgrim’s staff and scrip to start along the thorny path that led to the
shrine of art, she was not actuated by any weak and wayward desire
of change, but by the vehement and passionate desire to give forth
to the world what was locked within her breast.
The beginning of her life in Paris was one of considerable poverty
and privation. She lived au cinquième in a lodging, which cost her a
yearly rent of £12; she had no servant, and got in her food from an
eating-house close by for the sum of two francs a day. Her washing
and needlework she did herself. Notwithstanding this rigid economy,
it was impossible to keep within the limits of her husband’s
allowance of £10 a year, especially as far as her dress was
concerned.
After some hesitation therefore she took the resolution, which
caused so much scandal then and afterwards, of adopting male
attire.

“My thin boots wore out in a few days,” she tells us in the
autobiography. “I forgot to hold up my dress, and covered my
petticoats with mud. My bonnets were spoilt one after another
by the rain. I generally returned from the expeditions I took,
dirty, weary, and cold. Whereas my young men acquaintances—
some of whom had been the companions of my childhood in
Berri—had none of these inconveniences to submit to. I
therefore had a long gray cloth coat made with a waistcoat and
trousers to match. When this costume was completed by a gray
felt hat and a loose woollen cravat, no one could have guessed
that I was not a young student in my first year. My boots were
my particular delight. I should like to have gone to bed with
them. On their little iron heels I wandered from one end of Paris
to the other; no one took any notice of me, or suspected my
disguise.”

George Sand was twenty-seven years of age at this time. Without

being beautiful she was striking and sympathetic-looking. Sainte-
Beuve thus describes his first interview with her:

“I saw, as I entered the room, a young woman with expressive

eyes and a fine open brow, surrounded by black hair, cut rather
short. She was quiet and composed in manner, speaking little
herself, but listening attentively to all I had to say.”

In an engraving of Calmatta’s from a picture done by Ary Scheffer,

we see that her features were large but regular, her eyes
magnificent, and her face distinguished by an expression of strength
and calm that was very remarkable. Her hair, dressed in long
bandeaux, increases this expression of peace so belied by the
audacity of her genius.
She began her life of independence with very fixed opinions on
abstract ideas, but with complete ignorance, so far as material
necessities were concerned:

“I know nothing about the world, and have no prejudices on the

subject of society, to which the more I see of it, the less I desire
to belong. I do not think I can reform it, I do not interest myself
enough about it to wish to do so. This reserve and laziness is
perhaps a mistake, but it is the inevitable result of a life of
isolation and solitude. I have a basis of ‘nonchalance’ and
apathy in my disposition which, without any effort on my part,
keeps me attached to a sedentary life, or, as my friends would
call it, ‘an animal one.’”

A great many of these friends were so shocked at her eccentric

proceedings, that she made up her mind to withdraw voluntarily
from intercourse with them, leaving them the option of continuing it
if they liked.

“What right had I to be angry with them, if they gave me up?

How could I expect them to understand my aims or my desires?
Did they know? Did I know myself, when burning my vessels,
whether I had any talent, any perseverance?
 “I never told any one my real intentions; and whenever I talked
of becoming an authoress, it was in joke, making fun of the
idea, and of myself.”

Still her destiny urged her forward, and she was more than ever
resolved, in spite of the difficulty, to follow a literary career:

“My life is restricted here, but I feel that I now have an object. I
am devoted to one task, and indeed to one passion. The love of
writing is a violent, almost an indestructible one; when once it
has taken possession of an unfortunate brain it never leaves it
again.... I have had no success: my work has been found
unnatural by people whose opinion I have asked.... Better
known names must take precedence of mine, that is only fair:
patience, patience.... Meantime I must live on. I am not above
any work. I write even articles for Figaro. I wish you knew what
that meant; but at least they pay me seven francs a column;
and with that I can eat, drink, and go to the play, which is an
opportunity for me to make the most useful and amusing
observations.
“If one wishes to write, one must see everything, know
everything, laugh at everything. Ah, ma foi, vive la vie d’artiste!
notre devise est liberté.”

She thus describes her mornings spent in the editorial offices of the
Figaro:

“I was not very industrious, I must confess, but then I

understood nothing of the work. Delatouche would give me a
subject, and a piece of foolscap paper, telling me not to exceed
certain limits. I often scribbled over ten pages which I threw in
the fire, and on which I had not written one word of sense. My
colleagues were full of intelligence, energy, and facility. I
listened, was much amused, but did no good work, and at the
end of the month received an average of twelve francs fifty
centimes, and am not sure I was not overpaid at that.”
She writes to M. Boucoiran:

“People blame me because I write for the Figaro. I do not care

much what they say. I must live, and am proud enough of
earning my bread myself. The Figaro is a means as well as
another. I must pass through the apprenticeship of journalism. I
know it is often disagreeable; but one need never dirty one’s
hands with anything unworthy. Seven francs a column is not
much to earn, but it is most important to get a good footing in a
newspaper office.”

She painted the most vivid portraits of the various eminent men
whose aid she sought, and who invariably tried to dissuade her from
embarking on a literary career. Balzac, when she first knew him,
lived in an “entresol” in the Rue de Cassini.

“I was introduced to him as a person greatly struck by his

talent, which indeed was true, for although at that time he had
not yet produced his ‘chefs-d’œuvre,’ I had admired his original
manner of looking at things, and felt that he had a great future
before him. Every one knows how satisfied he was with himself,
a satisfaction which was so well justified that one forgave him
for it. He loved to talk of his works, to describe them
beforehand, and to read little bits of them aloud. Naïve and
good-hearted, he asked advice of children, and then only made
use of it as an argument to prove how right he was himself.
“One evening when we had dined with him in some eccentric
manner on boiled beef, melon and iced champagne, he went
and put on a beautiful new dressing-gown, which he showed off
with the delight of a young girl. We could not dissuade him from
going out in this costume to accompany us as far as the
entrance to the Luxembourg. There was not a breath of wind,
and he carried a lighted candle in his hand, talking continuously
of four Arab horses, which he never owned, but which he firmly
 believed for some time were in his possession. He would have
gone with us to the other end of Paris, had we permitted it.
“My employer Delatouche was not nearly so pleasant. He also
talked continuously about himself, and read aloud his novels
with more discretion than Balzac, but with still more
complacency. Woe betide you if you moved the furniture, stirred
the fire, or even sneezed while he was thus occupied. He would
stop immediately to ask you, with polite solicitude, if you had a
cold, or an attack of nerves, and pretending to forget the book
he had been reading, he obliged you to beg and pray before he
would open it again. He never could accept the idea of growing
old with resignation, and always said: ‘I am not fifty, but twice
twenty-five years of age.’ He had plenty of critical discernment,
and his observations often kept me from affectations and
peculiarities of style—the great stumbling-block of all young
authors. Although he gave me good advice, he put what
seemed to me insurmountable difficulties in my way. ‘Beware of
imitation,’ he said, ‘make use of your own powers, read in your
own heart, and in the life you see around you, and then record
your impressions.... You are too absolute in your sentiments.
Your character is too strong. You neither know the world, nor
individuals, your brain is empty! Your works may be charming,
but they are quite wanting in common sense. You must write
them all over again.’ I perfectly agreed with him and went away,
making up my mind to keep to the painting of tea-caddies and
cigarette cases.”

At last “Indiana” was begun, aimlessly, and with no hope of success.

“I resolutely,” she says in the “Histoire de ma Vie,” “put all

precept and example out of my mind, and neither sought in
others, nor in my own individuality, a type or character. Of
course it has been said that Indiana was me, and her history
mine. She was nothing of the kind. I have drawn many different
female personations, but I think when the world reads this
 confession of my impressions and reflections, it will see that
none of them are intended for my own portrait. I am too
elevated in my views to see a heroine of romance in my mirror. I
never found myself handsome enough nor amiable enough to
be either poetic or interesting; it would have seemed to me as
impossible to dramatise my life, as to embellish my person.”

“Indiana” was signed for the first time by her nom de plume George
Sand.
Her former romance, “Rose et Blanche,” had been written in
collaboration with M. Jules Sandeau. It appeared under the name of
Jules Sand. When “Indiana” was finished Delatouche, who undertook
to publish it, advised its authoress to change the name of Jules to
George. She did so, and henceforth in literature and society was
known by no other name but George Sand.
“Indiana” was a genuine success, and made a considerable stir in
Paris. The imperfections of its construction were forgiven for the
eloquence of its passion and the beauty of its style; and the only
words on every one’s lips for some days after its appearance, were,
“Have you read ‘Indiana’? You must read ‘Indiana.’”
Even her severe friend Delatouche was stirred out of his critical
frame of mind. She describes his clambering up to her garret, and
finding a copy of “Indiana” lying on the table.

“He took it up, and opened it contemptuously. I wished to keep

him from the subject and spoke about other things, but he
would read on, and kept calling out at each page: ‘Come, it is a
copy! Nothing but a copy of Balzac.’ I had neither sought nor
avoided an imitation of the great novelist’s style, and felt that
although the book had been written under his influence, it was
unjust to say it was a copy. I let him carry away the volume,
hoping he would rescind his judgment. Next morning on
awaking I received the following letter:
 “‘George,—I beg your pardon; I am at your feet. Forgive the
insulting observations I made last night. Forgive all that I have
said to you for the last six months. I have spent the night
reading your book. Ah, my child! How proud I am of you!’”

The following extract from one of her letters written after the
publication of “Indiana” shows how modest she remained in the
midst of her success:

“The popularity of my book frightens me. Up to this moment I

have worked inconsequently, convinced that anything I
produced would pass unnoticed. Fate has ordained otherwise. I
must try to justify the undeserved admiration of which I am the
object.
“Curiously enough, it seems as if half the pleasure of my
profession were gone. I had always thought the word inspiration
very ambitious, and only to be employed when referring to
genius of the highest order. I would never dare to use it when
speaking of myself without protesting against the exaggeration
of a term which is only sanctioned by an incontestable success.
We must find a word, however, which will not make modest
people blush, and will express that ‘grace’ which descends more
or less intensely on all heads in earnest about their work. There
is no artist, however humble, who has not his moments of
inspiration, and perhaps the heavenly liquor is as precious in an
earthenware vessel as in a golden one. Only one keeps it pure
and clear, while the other transmutes it or breaks itself. Let us
accept the word as it is therefore, and take it for granted that
from my pen it means nothing presumptuous.
“When beginning to write ‘Indiana,’ I felt an unaccustomed and
strong emotion, unlike anything I had ever experienced in my
former efforts at composition; it was more painful than
agreeable. I wrote spontaneously, never thinking of the social
problem on which I was touching. I was not Saint-Simonian, I
never have been, although I have had great sympathy with
 some of the ideas and for some of the members of the
fraternity; but I did not know them at that time, and was
uninfluenced by their tenets. The only feeling I had was a horror
of ignorant tyranny.”

In spite of her literary success the year 1833 was one of the most
unhappy of George Sand’s life. We know the lines addressed to her
by Mrs. Browning:

“True genius, but true woman! dost deny The woman’s nature
with a manly scorn, And break away the gauds and armlets
worn By weaker women in captivity? Ah, vain denial! That
revolted cry Is sobbed in by a woman’s voice forlorn,— Thy
woman’s hair, my sister! all unshorn, Floats back dishevelled,
strength in agony, Disproving thy man’s name: And while before
The world thou burnest in a poet-fire, We see thy woman’s
heart beat evermore Through the large flame.”
“I ought to be able to enjoy this independence bought at so
dear a price,” she writes to her friend M. François Rollinat, “but I
am no longer able to do so. My heart has become twenty years
older, and nothing in life seems bright or gay. I can never feel
anything acutely again, either sorrow or joy. I have gone
through everything and rounded the cape; not like those easy-
going nabobs who repose in silken hammocks under the
cedarwood ceilings of their palaces, but like those poor pilots
who, crushed by fatigue, and burnt by the sun, come to anchor,
not daring to expose their fragile bark to the stormy seas.
Formerly they led a happy life, full of adventure and love. They
long to begin it again, but their vessel is dismasted, and the
cargo lost.”

Alas! the “fragile bark” was tempted once more to put to sea, this
time freighted with the rich cargo of all the love and all the hope of
her passionate woman’s heart.
In the “Histoire de ma Vie” she touches very slightly on the episode
of her journey to Venice with Alfred de Musset, and in the
“Correspondence” we only read the following significant words,
written to M. Jules Boucoiran from Venice on April 6, 1834:

“Alfred has left for Paris. I shall remain here some time. We
have separated, for months, perhaps for ever. God knows what
will become of me now. I feel still, however, full of strength to
live, work, and endure.”

He suffered more than she. After lying six weeks in a brain fever
hovering between life and death, he returned to his family broken
down in health and spirits—“I bring you,” he writes to his brother, “a
sick body, a grieving soul, and a bleeding heart, but one that still
loves you.”
He declared later, when the anguish had passed, that,

“In spite of its sadness, it was the happiest period of my life. I

have never told you all the story. It would be worth something if
I wrote it down; but what is the use? My mistress was dark, she
had large eyes! I loved her, and she forsook me. I wept and
sorrowed for four months; is not that enough?”

The year that followed their separation was a momentous one in

both their literary careers. He produced the “Nuit de Mai,” the “Nuit
de Décembre” and the “Confessions d’un Enfant du Siècle;” while
she wrote “Jacques” and “Consuelo.”
Her letters are the fittest commentary on her life and mode of
thought at this time. She thus addresses M. Jules Boucoiran:

“You make serious accusations against me. You reproach me for

my many frivolous friendships and affections. I never undertake
to justify statements made about my character. I can explain
facts and actions, but blunders of the intelligence, errors of the
heart, never! I have too just an opinion of merit in general to
 think much of my individual worth; indeed I have neither
reverence nor affection for myself, the field is therefore open to
those who malign me; and I am ready to laugh with them, if
they appeal to my philosophy; but when it is a question of
affection, when it is the sufferings of friendship which you wish
to express, you are wrong. If we have discovered great faults in
those we love we must take counsel with ourselves, and see
whether we can still continue to care for them. The wisest
course is to give them up, the most generous to remain their
friends, but for that generosity to be complete there must be no
reproaches, no dragging up of events long past.”

The following is written to M. Adolphe Gueroult:

“Your letter is as good and true as your heart; but I send you
back this page of it, which is absurd and quite out of place. No
one must write in such terms to me. If you criticise my costume,
let it be on other grounds. It is really better you should not
interfere at all. Read the parts I have underlined, they are
astoundingly impertinent. I don’t think you were quite
responsible when you wrote them. I am not angry and am not
less attached to you, but I must beg you not to be so foolish
again. It does not suit you....
“My friends will respect me just as much, I hope, in a coat as in
a dress. I do not go out in male habiliments without a stick, so
do not be afraid ... and be assured I do not aspire to the dignity
of a man. It seems to me too ridiculous a position to be
preferable to the servitude of a woman. I only wish to possess
to-day, and for ever, that delightful and complete independence
which you seem to imagine is your prerogative alone. You can
tell your friends and acquaintances that it is absolutely useless
to attempt to presume on my attire or my black eyes, for I do
not allow any impertinence, however I may be dressed.”
She became Republican, almost Communistic in her views, founded
a paper, the Cause du Peuple, and contributed to another, the
Commune de Paris.

“It seems to me,” she writes to her son, “that the earth belongs
to God, who made it and has given it to man as a haven of
refuge. It cannot therefore be His intention that some should
suffer from repletion, while others die of hunger. All that any
one can say on the subject will not prevent me from feeling
miserable and angry when I see a beggar man moaning at a
rich man’s door.
“If I say all this to you, however, you must not repeat it or show
my letter. You know your father’s opinions are different. You
must listen to him with respect, but your conscience is free, and
you can choose between his ideas and mine. I will teach you
many things if you and I ever live together. If we are not fated
to enjoy this happiness (the greatest I can imagine, and the
only thing that would make me wish to stop on earth), you will
pray God for me, and from the bosom of death, if anything
remains of me in the Universe, my spirit will watch over you.”

After the June massacres, she retired, sad and disappointed, to

Nohant, where, surrounded by her children and grandchildren, she
reigned as père et mère de famille, respected and loved by all. The
eccentricities of her youth were forgiven for the sake of her genius
and generosity of heart. She was hospitable and simple, allowing her
son and his wife to manage the household and property, making her
guests, however, feel that she was the controlling spirit of the house.
Here—all the struggles of life over—she devoted herself to literature,
and produced the best works of her life: “La Petite Fadette,” “La
Mare au Diable,” and “François le Chiampi.” George Sand had none
of the brilliancy and repartee in general conversation one would
have expected, and as the years went on she became more silent
and reserved.
Her greatest happiness was to sit in her arm-chair smoking
cigarettes. Often, when her friends thought she was absorbed in her
own meditations, she would put in a word that proved she had been
listening to everything. The word spoken, she would relapse again
into silence. It was only when she sat down to her desk that she
became eloquent, and the expressions that halted on her lips rushed
abundantly from her pen. Her characters grew beneath her hand,
and she went on writing, with that perfect style which is like the
rhythmic cadence of a great river—“Large, calm, and regular.”
George Sand worked all night long after all her guests were in bed,
sometimes remaining up until five o’clock in the morning. She
generally sat down to the old bureau in the hall at Nohant, with pen,
ink, and foolscap paper sewn together, and began, without notes or
a settled scheme of any kind.

“You wish to write,” she says to her lovely young friend, the
Comtesse d’Agoult. “Then do so by all means. You are young, in
the full force of your intelligence and powers. Write quickly and
don’t think too much. If you reflect, you will cease to have any
particular bent, and will write from habit. Work while you have
genius, while the gods dictate to you. I think you will have a
great success, and may you be spared the thorns which
surround the blessed flowers of the crown of glory. Why should
the thorns pierce your flesh? You have not wandered through
the desert.”

When death came, she met it simply and bravely, like the great soul
that she was. “Laissez la verdure” were the last words she spoke. No
one at first understood what she meant, and thought she was
delirious, but afterwards they remembered that she had always
expressed a dislike to slabs and crosses on the graves of those she
loved, so they left a mound of grass to mark her resting-place.
As we read the works of the two great female novelists of the
century, George Eliot and George Sand, a comparison inevitably
suggests itself to our minds. They both had the same passionate
sympathy with the trials and sufferings of humanity, the same love
and reverence for all that was weak and lowly. No intellectual
aristocracy existed for them; they loved the crowd, and tried to
influence the crowd. It is curious they should both have made the
same observation, the one on hearing Liszt, the other on hearing
Mendelssohn play: “Had I any genius, that is the form I should have
wished to take, for then I could have spoken to all my fellow-men.”
George Sand was ever seeking ideal perfection, and in that search
often lost the right road and “wandered in the desert.” George Eliot
accepted life with that calm resignation that was part of her nature;
she was more restrained and less passionate than her French sister.
The one, while at school, reproaches herself for her coldness and
inability to feel any enthusiasm about the prayer-meetings in vogue
among her companions. The other cast herself on her knees one day
in a fit of devotion, and for weeks declared that she would become a
nun.
There is as much divergence in the artistic work they produced as in
their characters. George Sand, without having the perfection of
construction and finish that distinguish George Eliot, far surpasses
her in the delineation of her female characters. George Eliot never
described a woman of genius, while George Sand has written
Consuelo and the Comtesse Rudolstadt, both of them types of the
femme artiste, with all her weakness and all her greatness.
In the painting of human love, also, the French novelist is infinitely
stronger than the English one. We linger with absorbing interest over
the suffering and passion of Indiana and Valentine, while we yawn
over the conversations between Dorothea and Will Ladislaw, or
Deronda and Myra. George Eliot herself has said, “That for
eloquence and depth of feeling no man approaches George Sand.”
We have seen a photograph done of George Sand shortly before she
died. The face is massive, but lit up by the wonderful eyes through
which the soul still shines. An expression of tenderness and gentle
philosophy hovers round the lips, and we feel almost as though they
would break into a smile as we gaze. She became latterly like one of
those grand old trees of her own “Vallée Noire,” lopped and maimed
by the storms and struggles of life, but ever to the last putting forth
tender shoots and expanding into fresh foliage, through which the
soft winds of heaven whisper, making music in the ears of those
weary wayfarers who pause to rest beneath their shade.—Temple
Bar.
 SOME INTERESTING WORDS.
One of the most interesting results of the study of language is the
elucidation which it affords of the history of mankind. In the larger
sphere of comparative philology, important discoveries regarding the
relations of various races have been made. In some cases a common
origin has been proved for the widely dissimilar languages of
different nations; in others, the influence of one people upon its less
civilised neighbors is clearly shown. If, on the other hand, we confine
our inquiries to our own language, the historical associations which it
presents are no less interesting. The successive races which
predominated in the early days of the history of Great Britain, have
each left its impress upon our language, in which Celtic, Latin,
Saxon, Danish, and Norman elements are strangely intermingled.
Even now, our commercial intercourse with the inhabitants of every
quarter of the globe is ever enriching our vocabulary with borrowed
terms and phrases. Hence, it is hardly to be wondered that such a
composite language affords an ample field for research. We may
trace in it the gradual progress of civilisation, and follow the changes
of national ideas and feelings, the elevation of some words, the
debasement of many others. We may recognise the half-forgotten
names of men once famous for their characters and achievements,
and of places once renowned for their produce and manufactures.
Finally, we may recall states of society which have long since passed
away, and find in modern phrases vestiges of the manners and
customs of other days.
It is to these records of the minor details of life that we would briefly
call attention, as an investigation possessing the double interest of
investing with greater reality the history of the past, and of throwing
a new light on the bearing of words otherwise inexplicable. This
class of words has undoubtedly been increased by startling
derivations, due more to the imagination and ingenuity of their
inventors, than to any certain foundation in fact. But even those
which are universally recognised form a considerable category, from
which we may select a few of the more interesting specimens.
We would first remind our readers of the derivations of two words
applied to a peculiar form of wealth—the substantive fee and the
adjective pecuniary, which, though so widely different in form, recall
to us the same idea through the vehicle of different languages. They
are both taken from words—the one Saxon, the other Latin—
signifying “cattle,” and thus take us back to the times when flocks
and herds were the chief property of our ancestors, the evidence as
well as the source of their wealth. It is curious how, from this first
signification, the words came to be considered applicable to wealth
of any kind, and have now become almost limited in meaning to
property in the form of money. To the same days of primitive
simplicity we may also undoubtedly attribute the word rivals, when
the pastoral dwellers by the same stream (Latin rivus) would not
unfrequently be brought into unfriendly competition with each other.
Some words and expressions are derived from the time when but
few persons could boast of what we should consider the most
elementary education. The word signature, for example, had a more
literal application in the days when the art of writing was known but
to a few monks and scholars, and when kings and barons, no less
than their humbler followers, affixed their cross or sign to any
document requiring their assent. Again, when we speak of abstruse
calculations, we make unthinking reference to the primitive method
of counting by means of pebbles (calculi), resorted to by the
Romans.
It is remarkable how many of the terms relating to books and the
external materials of literature refer primarily to the simple materials
made use of by our ancestors to preserve their thoughts and the
records of their lives. In book itself, it is generally acknowledged we
have a proof of how a primitive race, generally believed to have
been the Goths, employed the durable wood of the boc or beech-
tree on which to inscribe their records. Library and kindred words in
our own and other modern languages indicate the use of the liber or
inner bark of a tree as a writing material; while code, from caudex,
the trunk of a tree, points to the wooden tablets smeared with wax
on which the ancients originally wrote. The thin wooden leaves or
tablets were not like the volumina, rolled within one another, but,
like those of our books, lay over one another. The stilus, or iron-
pointed implement used for writing on these tablets, has its modern
form in our style, which has come to be applied less to the manner
of writing than to the mode of expression. Hence its significance has
been extended so as to apply to arts other than that of composition.
As advancing civilisation brought to the Western world the art of
making a writing material from strips of the inner rind of the
Egyptian papyrus glued together transversely, the word paper was
introduced, to be applied as time went on to textures made of
various substances. The Greek name of the same plant (byblos)
gives us a word used with reference to books in the composite forms
of bibliographer, bibliomania, and so forth. It is worthy of remark
that in England, as well as in France, Germany, and other European
countries, the simple form of this Greek word for book, our Bible,
has come to be restricted to One Book, to the exclusion of all others.
From scheda, a Latin word for a strip of papyrus rind, has also
descended our schedule.
The transition from tablets to paper as a writing material has also a
monument in volume, which, in spite of its significance as a roll of
paper, is applied to the neatly folded books which have taken the
place of that cumbrous form of literature. More than one instance of
a similar retention of a word the actual signification of which is
completely obsolete, might easily be adduced. The word indenture
refers to an ancient precaution against forgery resorted to in the
case of important contracts. The duplicate documents, of which each
party retained one, were irregularly indented in precisely the same
manner, so that upon comparison they might exactly tally. A vignette
portrait has also lost the accompaniment which alone made the
name appropriate, namely, the vine-leaves and tendrils which in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries usually formed its ornamental
border. The directions in the English Prayer-book, again, are still
known as rubrics (Latin ruber, red), although it is now the exception
rather than the rule to see them printed as originally, in red letters.
Once more, we apply without any sense of incongruity the name of
pen (from Latin penna, a feather) to all those modern appliances
which rival, if they have not yet superseded, the quill, to which alone
the word is really appropriate.
Several words come down to us derived from customs connected
with election to public offices. The word candidate (from Latin
candidus, white), is one of these. It was customary among the
Romans for any suitor for office to appear in a peculiar dress
denoting his position. His toga was loose, so that he might show the
people the scars of the wounds received in the cause of the
commonwealth, and artificially whitened in token of fidelity and
humility. Again, ambition—a word of which the significance has been
widened to embrace the most overpowering of all the passions of
the human heart—refers primarily to the practice of these same
candidates of repairing to the forum and other places of public
resort, and their “going round” (Latin ambientes) among the people,
endeavoring to ingratiate themselves by friendly words and
greetings. From the ancient practice of secret voting by means of
“balls,” we have the word ballot, which is erroneously applied to all
secret voting, even when, as in the case of our parliamentary
elections, voting-papers, and not balls, are employed. Nor must we
omit another word of similar origin—that is, ostracism. This word
signified among the Greeks the temporary banishment which might
be inflicted by six thousand votes of the Athenian people upon any
person suspected of designs against the liberty of the state. The
name arose from the votes being recorded upon a bit of burnt clay
or an earthenware tile shaped like a shell (Gr. ostrakon, a shell). It is
closely allied to the Greek ostreon, or Latin ostrea, an oyster. A
somewhat similar practice existed among the Syracusans, where it
went by the name of petalism, from the leaf (Gr. petalon) on which
the name of the offender was written. With the caprice of language,
Welcome to our website – the perfect destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world,
offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth.
That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of
books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to
self-development guides and children's books.

More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge

connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an
elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can
quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally,
our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time
and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and

personal growth every day!

ebookbell.com