ABSTRACT
Flaubert seeks beauty above all; George Sand indicates a different priority of values. In the letter that elicited the passage here quoted, she compares the effect of her work and that of her friend’s: What will we do? It is certain that you are going to create desolation, and I — consolation. I don’t know what governs our destinies; you watch them pass; you criticize them; you abstain literarily from judging them; you con fine yourself to painting them while hiding your personal feeling with great care, on principle. Nevertheless, one sees it through your story, and you make the people who read you sadder. As for me, I would render them less unhappy.15
