Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 49, November, 1861 | Page 8

to few in their own consciousness. Despite the loss of her father, and the vexed relations between her mother and grandmother which followed his death, her infancy was joyous and companionable, passed mostly with the country surroundings and out-door influences which act so magically on the young. It soon became evident that she was to be confided chiefly to her grandmother's care; and this, which was at first a fear, soon came to be a sorrow. Still her mother was often with her, and her time was divided between the plays of her village-friends and the dreams of romantic incident which early formed the main feature of her inner life. Already at a very early age her mother used to say to those who laughed at the little romancer,--"Let her alone; it is only when she is making her novels between four chairs that I can work in peace." This habit of mind grew with her growth. Her very dolls played grandiose parts in her child-drama. The paper on the wall became animated to her at night, and in her dreams she witnessed strange adventures between its Satyrs and Bacchantes. Soon she imagined for herself a sort of angel-companion, whose name was Corambé. His presence grew to be more real to her than reality itself, and in her quiet moments she wove out the mythology of his existence, as Bhavadgheetas and Mahabraatus have been dreamed. In process of time, she built, or rather entwisted, for him a little shrine in the woods. All pretty things the child could gather were brought together there, to give him pleasure. But one day the foot of a little playmate profaned this sanctuary, and Aurore sought it no more, while still Corambé was with her everywhere.
Although she seems to have always suffered from her mother's inequalities of temper, yet for many years she clung to her, and to the thought of her, with jealous affection. The great difference of age which separated her from her grandmother inspired fear, and the grand manners and careful breeding of the elder lady increased this effect. When left with her, the child fell into a state of melancholy, with passionate reactions against the chilling, penetrating influence, which yet, having reason on its side, was destined to subdue her. "Her chamber, dark and perfumed, gave me the headache, and fits of spasmodic yawning. When she said to me, '_Amuse yourself quietly_,' it seemed to me as if she shut me up in a great box with her." What sympathetic remembrances must this phrase evoke in all who remember the _gêne_ of similar constraints! George draws from this inferences of the wisdom of Nature in confiding the duties of maternity to young creatures, whose pulses have not yet lost the impatient leap of early pleasure and energy, and to whom repose and reflection have not yet become the primal necessities of life. This want of the nearness and sympathy of age she was to experience more, as, by the consent of both parties, her education was to be conducted under the superintendence of her grandmother, from whom the mother derived her pension, and whose estate the child was to inherit. The separation from her mother, gradually effected, was the great sorrow of her childhood. She revolted from it sometimes openly, sometimes in secret; and the project of escaping and joining her mother in Paris, where, with her half-sister Caroline, they would support themselves by needle-work, was soon formed and long cherished. For the expenses of this intended journey, the child carefully gathered and kept her little treasures, a coral comb, a ring with a tiny brilliant, etc., etc. In contemplating these, she consoled many a heartache; as who is there of us who has not often effectually beguiled ennui and privation by dreams of joys that never were to have any other reality? The mother seems to have entered into this plan only for the moment; it soon escaped her remembrance altogether, and the little girl waited and waited to be sent for, till finally the whole vision faded into a dream.
Deschartres, the tutor of Maurice, and of Hippolyte, his illegitimate son, became also the instructor of the little Aurore. With all her passion for out-door life, she felt always, she tells us, an invincible necessity of mental cultivation, and perpetually astonished those who had charge of her by her ardor alike in work and in play. Her grandmother soon found that the child was never ill, so long as sufficient freedom of exercise was permitted; so she was soon allowed to run at will, dividing her time pretty equally between the study and the fields. Thus she grew in mind and body from seven to twelve, promising to be tall and handsome, though not in after-years fulfilling this promise;