The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (12.1897)

She and He: Recent Documents

By Henry James

I have been reading in the Revue de Paris for November 1st
1896 some fifty pages, of an extraordinary interest, which
have had, as regards an old admiration, a very singular effect.
For many other admirers, doubtless, who have come to fifty year
—admirers, I mean, once eager, of the distinguished woman in
question—the perusal of the letters addressed by Madame George
Sand to Alfred de Musset in the course of a famous friendship
will have stirred in an odd fashion the ashes of an early ardour. I
speak of ashes because early ardours, for the most part, burn
themselves out, and the place they hold in our lives varies, I
think, mainly according to the degree of tenderness with which
we gather up and preserve their dust; and I speak of oddity
because in the present case it is difficult to say whether the agita-
tion of the embers results, in fact, in a returning glow or in a yet
more sensible chill. That indeed is perhaps a small question
compared with the simple pleasure of the reviving emotion. One
reads and wonders and enjoys again, just for the sake of the
renewal. The small fry of the hour submit to further shrinkage,
and we revert with a sigh of relief to the free genius and large
life of one of the greatest of all masters of expression. Do people
still handle the works of this master—people other than young

ladies