CHAP. II - FRENCH CRITICS.—THE ENTHUSIASTS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 August 2010
Summary
I have already mentioned the novelist, George Sand, and the symphonist, M. Berlioz, more than once, as foremost in the ranks of those who have contributed their thoughts and feelings upon Music to the French public. Here they must be sketched a little more in detail. While the one has more sincerity, and the other more knowledge, than the feuilletonists I have already mentioned, they exercise too much influence to permit of their being passed over, and possess too many features in common to be disunited.
The lady first, of course; though never was any one more willing to waive all the courtesies and femalities (as Uncle Selby called them) of the sex. For many years she would only plead her womanhood, when such an event as a summons to take a part in the service of the National Guard compelled George Sand to declare that the “doublet and hose” implied in her name were but “un symbole, un mythe,” and that she was really nothing less or more than Madame Dudevant — a lady of old family belonging to the province of Berri — married without a will of her own, and who had pushed the consequences of such treaty-work, theoretically and practically, to the most audacious extent.
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- Music and Manners in France and GermanyA Series of Travelling Sketches of Art and Society, pp. 3 - 33Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009