Note 7 — GEORGE BRANDES (continued 2)

We owe to Madame Girardin the one witty thing that has been said on the subject of Buffon's dictum. When trying to prove that in each of George Sand's novels the influence of some real personage enthusiastically admired by the authoress is to be distinctly traced, she quotes the saying of a wit: "It is when we are criticising the works of women writers that we are most often obliged to exclaim with Buffon: Le style c'est l'homme." (Le Vicomte de Launay, Lettres parisiennes, i. 89).