A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2

by George Saintsbury

  CHAPTER IV

  BEYLE AND BALZAC

  There may possibly be some readers who might prefer that the twonovelists whose names head this chapter should be treated each in achapter to himself. But after trying several plans (for I can assuresuch readers that the arrangement of this History has been the reverseof haphazard) I have thought it best to yoke them. That they have morein common with each other, not merely than either has with Hugo orDumas, or even George Sand, but than either of these three has with theothers, few will deny. And as a _practising_ novelist Beyle has hardlysubstance enough to stand by himself, though as an influence--for a timeand that no short one and still existing--scarcely any writer in ourwhole list has been more efficacious. It is not my purpose, nor, Ithink, my duty, to say much about their relations to each other; indeedBeyle delayed his novel-work so long, and Balzac codified his own socarefully and so early, that the examination of the question would needto be meticulous, and might even be a little futile in a generalhistory, though it is an interesting subject for a monograph. It isenough to say that, _generally_, both belong to the analytical ratherthan to the synthetical branch of novel-writing, and may almost be saidbetween them to have introduced the analytical romance; that theycompose their palettes of sombre and neutral rather than of brilliantcolours; that actual "story interest" is not what they, as a rule,[124]aim at. Finally--though this may be a proposition likely to be disputedwith some heat in one case if not in both--their conception of humanityhas a certain "other-worldliness" about it, though it is as far aspossible from being what is usually understood by the adjective"unworldly" and though the forms thereof in the two only partiallycoincide.

  [Sidenote: Beyle--his peculiarity.]

  Of the books of Henri Beyle, otherwise Stendhal,[125] to say that theyare not like anything else will only seem banal to those who bring thebanality with them. To annoy these further by opposing pedantry tobanality, one might say that the aseity is quintessential. Therenever--to be a man of great power, almost genius, a commandinginfluence, and something like the founder of a characteristic school ofliterature--was such a _habitans in sicco_ as Beyle; indeed hissubstance and his atmosphere are not so much dry as _desiccated_. Thedryness is not like that which was attributed in the last volume toHamilton, which is the dryness of wine: it is almost the dryness ofashes. By bringing some humour of your own[126] you may confection asort of grim comedy out of parts of his work, but that is all. At thesame time, he has an astonishing command of such reality, and evenvitality, as will (one cannot say survive but) remain over the processof desiccation.

  That Beyle was not such a passionless person as he gave himself out tobe in his published works was of course always suspected, and more thansuspected, by readers with any knowledge of human nature. It was finallyproved by the autobiographic _Vie de Henri Brulard_, and the otherremains which were at last given to the world, nearly half a centuryafter the author's death, by M. Casimir Stryienski. But the great partwhich he played in producing a new kind of novel is properly concernedwith the earlier and larger division of the work, though the posthumousstuff reinforces this.

  [Sidenote: _Armance._]

  Some one, I believe, has said--many people may have said--that you neverget a much truer notion, though you may afterwards get a clearer andfuller, of a writer than from his earliest work.[127] _Armance_, Beyle'sfirst published novel,[128] though by no means the one which hasreceived most attention, is certainly illuminating. Or rather, perhapsone should say that it poses the puzzle which Beyle himself put brieflyin the words quoted by his editor and biographer: "Qu'ai-j'ete? quesuis-je? En verite je serais bien embarrasse de le dire." To tell equaltruth, it is but a dull book in itself, surcharged with a vaguepolitical spite, containing no personage whom we are permitted to like(it would be quite possible to like Armance de Zohiloff if we were onlytold less _about_ her and allowed to see and hear more _of_ her), andpossessing, for a hero, one of the most obnoxious and foolish prigs thatI can remember in any novel. Octave de Malivert unites varieties ofdetestableness in a way which might be interesting if (to speak withonly apparent flippancy) it were made so. He is commonplace in hisadoration of his mother and his neglect (though his historian calls it"respect") of his father; he is constantly a prig, as when he is shockedat people for paying more attention to him when they hear that hisparents are going to be indemnified to a large extent for the thefts oftheir property at the Revolution; he is such a sneak and such a snobthat he is always eavesdropping to hear what people say about him; sucha bounder that he disturbs his neighbours by talking loud at the play;such a brute that he deliberately kills a rather harmless coxcomb of amarquis who rebukes him for making this _tapage_; and such a stillgreater brute (for in the duel he had himself been wounded) that hethrows out of the window an unfortunate lackey who gets in his way at aparty where Octave has, as usual, lost his temper. Finally, he is acombination of prig, sneak, cad, brute, and fool when (having picked upand read a forged letter which is not addressed to him, though it hasbeen put by enemies in his way) he believes, without any enquiry, thathis unlucky cousin Armance, to whom he is at last engaged, is deceivinghim, but marries her all the same, lives with her (she loves himfrantically) for a few days, and then, pretending to go to the succourof the Greeks, poisons himself on board ship--rather more, as far as onecan make out, in order to annoy her than for any other reason. Thatthere are the elements, and something more than the elements, of apowerful story in this is of course evident; there nearly always aresuch elements in Beyle, and that is why he has his place here. But, ashas been said, the story is almost as dull as it is disagreeable.Unluckily, too, it is, like most of his other books, pervaded by anunpleasant suggestion that the disagreeableness is intimately connectedwith the author's own nature. As with Julien Sorel (_v. inf._) so withOctave de Malivert, one feels that, though Beyle would never havebehaved exactly like his book-child, that book-child has a great dealtoo much of the uncanny and semi-diabolical doubles of some occultstories in it--is, in fact, an incarnation of the bad Beyle, the seamyside of Beyle, the creature that Beyle might have been but for the graceof that God in whom he did not believe. Which things, however one mayhave schooled oneself not to let book and author interfere with eachother, are not comfortable.

  It ought, however, to be said that _Armance_ is an early and remarkableRomantic experiment in several ways, not least in the foreign mottoes,English, Portuguese, Spanish, and German, which are prefixed to thechapters. Unluckily some of them[129] are obviously retranslated fromFrench versions unverified by the originals, and once there is a mostcurious blunder. Pope's description of Belinda's neck and cross, notquite in the original words but otherwise exact, is attributedto--Schiller!

  [Sidenote: _La Chartreuse de Parme._]

  I have read, I believe, as much criticism as most men, possibly, indeed,a little more than most, and I ought long ago to have been beyond thereach of shocking, startling, or any other movement of surprise at anycritical utterance whatsoever. But I own that an access of _fou rire_once came upon me when I was told in a printed page that _La Chartreusede Parme_ was a "very lively and very amusing book." A book of great andpeculiar power it most undoubtedly is, a book standing out in theformidable genealogy of "psychological" novels as (_salva reverentia_)certain names stand out from the others in the greater list that opensthe first chapter of St. Matthew. But "lively"? and "amusing"? Wondroushot indeed is this snow, and more lustrous than any ebony are theclerestories towards the south-north of this structure.

  [Sidenote: The Waterloo episode.]

  [Sidenote: The subject and general colour.]

  To begin with, there rests on the whole book that oppression of _recit_which has been not unfrequently dwelt upon in the last volume, andsometimes this. Of the 440 pages, tightly printed, of the usual reprint,I should say that two-thirds at least are solid, or merely broken by oneor two paragraphs, which are seldom conversational. This, it may besaid, is a purely mechanical objection. But it is not so. Although theaction is
laid in the time contemporary with the writer and writing,from the fall of Napoleon onwards, and in the country (Italy) that heknew best, the whole cast and scheme are historical, the method is thatof a lecturer at a panorama, who describes and points while the panoramaitself passes a long way off behind a screen of clear but thick glass.In two or perhaps three mostly minute parts or scenes this descriptionmay seem unjust. One, the first, the longest, and the best, is perhapsalso the best-known of all Beyle's work: it is the sketch of the_debacle_ after Waterloo. (It is not wonderful that Beyle should knowsomething about retreats, for, though he was not at Waterloo, he hadcome through the Moscow trial.) This is a really marvellous thing andintensely interesting, though, as is almost always the case with theauthor, strangely unexciting. The interest is purely intellectual, andis actually increased by comparison with Hugo's imaginative account ofthe battle itself; but you do not care the snap of a finger whether thehero, Fabrice, gets off or not. Another patch later, where this sameFabrice is attacked by, and after a rough-and-tumble struggle kills, hissaltimbanque rival in the affections of a low-class actress, and thenhas a series of escapes from the Austrian police on the banks of the Po,has a little more of the exciting about it. So perhaps for some--I amnot sure that it has for me--may have the final, or provisionally final,escape from the Farnese Tower. And there is, even outside of thesepassages, a good deal of scattered incident.

  But these interesting plums, such as even they are, are stuck in anenormous pudding of presentation of the intrigues and vicissitudes of apetty Italian court,[130] in which, and in the persons who take part inthem, I at least find it difficult to take the very slightest interest.Fabrice del Dongo himself,[131] with whom every woman falls in love, andwho candidly confesses that he does not know whether he has ever beenreally in love with any woman--though there is one possible exceptionprecedent, his aunt, the Duchess of Sanseverina, and one subsequent,Clelia Conti, who saves him from prison, as above--is depicted withextraordinary science of human nature. But it is a science which, oncemore, excludes passion, humour, gusto--all the _fluids_ of real orfictitious life. Fabrice is like (only "much more also") the simulacraof humanity that were popular in music-halls a few years ago. He walks,talks, fights, eats, drinks, _thinks_ even, and makes love if he doesnot feel it, exactly like a human being. Except the "fluids" justmentioned, it is impossible to mention anything human that he lacks. Buthe lacks these, and by not having them lacks everything that moves thereader.

  And so it is more or less with all of them: with the Duchess and Clelialeast perhaps, but even with them to some extent; with the Duchess'sfirst _cicisbeo_ and then husband, Count Mosca, prime minister of theDuke of Parma; with his master, the feebly cruel and feebly tyrannicalRanuce-Ernest IV.; with the opposition intriguers at court; with theArchbishop, to whom Fabrice is made, by the influence of Count andDuchess, coadjutor and actual successor; with Clelia's father and hervery much belated husband--with all of them in short. You cannot saythey are "out"; on the contrary they do and say exactly what in thecircumstances they would do and say. Their creator's remarks about themare sometimes of a marvellous subtlety, expressed in a laconism whichseems to regard Marivaudage or Meredithese with an aristocratic disdain.But at other times this laconic letter literally killeth. Perhaps twoexamples of the two effects should be given:

  (_Fabrice has found favour in the eyes and arms of the actress Marietta_)

  The love of this pretty Marietta gave Fabrice all the charms of the sweetest friendship. _And this made him think of the happiness of the same kind which he might have found with the Duchess herself._

  If this is not "piercing to the accepted hells beneath" with adiamond-pointed plunger, I know not what is.

  But much later, quite towards the end of the book, the author has totell how Fabrice again and Clelia "forgot all but love" in one of theirstolen meetings to arrange his escape.

  (_He has, by the way, told a lie to make her think he is poisoned_)

  She was so beautiful--half-dressed and in a state of extreme passion as she was--that Fabrice could not resist an almost involuntary movement. No resistance was opposed.[132]

  Now I am not (see _Addenda and Corrigenda_ of the last volume) avid ofexpatiations of the Laclosian kind. But this is really a little too muchof the "Spanish-fleet-taken-and-burnt-as-per-margin" order.

  [Sidenote: _L'Abbesse de Castro_, etc.]

  Much the same characteristics, but necessarily on a small scale, appearin the short stories usually found under the title of the first andlongest of them, _L'Abbesse de Castro_. Two of these, _Mina de Wangel_and _Le Philtre_, are _historiettes_ of the passion which is absent from_La Chartreuse de Parme_; but each is tainted with the _macabre_ touchwhich Beyle affected or which (for that word is hardly fair) was naturalto him. In one a German girl of high rank and great wealth falls in lovewith a married man, separates him from his wife by a gross deception,lives with him for a time; and when he leaves her on finding out thefraud, blows her brains out. In the other a Spanish lady, seduced andmaltreated by a creole circus-rider of the worst character, declares toa more honourable lover her incurable passion for the scoundrel andtakes the veil. The rest are stories of the Italian Renaissance, grimyand gory as usual. Vittoria Accoramboni herself figures, but there is noevidence that Beyle (although he had some knowledge of Englishliterature[133]) knew at the time our glorious "White Devil," and hisstory dwells little on her faults and much on the punishment of hermurderers. _L'Abbesse de Castro_ itself, _La Duchesse de Palliano_, _SanFrancesco a Ripa_, _Vanina Vanini_ are all of the same type and all fullof the gloomier items seen by the Dreamer of Fair Women--

  Scaffolds, still sheets of water, divers woes, Ranges of glimmering vaults with iron grates,

  and blood everywhere. And these unmerry tales are always recounted _abextra_; in fact, many of them are real or pretended abstracts fromchronicles of the very kind which furnished Browning with the matter of_The Ring and the Book_. It is, however, more apt and more curious tocompare them with the scenes of Gerard's experiences with the princessin _The Cloister and the Hearth_, as instances of different handling ofthe same matter by two novelists of talent almost, if not quite,reaching genius.

  [Sidenote: _Le Rouge et le Noir._]

  This singular aloofness, this separation of subject and spectator by avast and impenetrable though translucent wall, as in a museum or a_morgue_, is characteristic of all Beyle's books more or less. In fact,he somewhere confesses--the confession having, as always in persons ofanything like his stamp, the nature of a boast--that he cannot writeotherwise than in _recit_, that the broken conversational or dramaticmethod is impossible to him. But an almost startling change--or perhapsit would be more accurate to say reinforcement--of this method appearsin what seems to me by far the most remarkable and epoch-making of hisbooks, _Le Rouge et le Noir_. That there is a strong autobiographicelement in this, though vigorously and almost violently "transposed,"must have been evident to any critical reader long ago. It became notmerely evident but _evidenced_ by the fresh matter published thirtyyears since.

  [Sidenote: Beyle's masterpiece, and why.]

  The book is a long one; it drags in parts; and, long as it is, there isstuff in it for a much longer--indeed preferably for two or three. It isnot only a _roman passionnel_, as Beyle understood passion, not only acollection of Parisian and Provincial scenes, but a romance of secretdiplomacy, and one of Seminarist life, with constant side-excursions ofVoltairianism, in religion, of the revolutionary element in politicswhich Voltaire did not ostensibly favour, however much he may have beenresponsible for it, of private cynicism, and above all and mostconsistently of all, of that psychological realism, which is perhaps amore different thing from psychological reality than our clever ones fortwo generations have been willing to admit, or, perhaps, able toperceive.

  That--to adopt a division which foolish folk have sneered at directlyand indirectly, but which is valuable and almost necessary in the case
of second-class literature--it is rather an unpleasant than a pleasantbook, must be pretty well apparent from what has been already said ofits author and itself. That it is a powerful one follows almost in thesame way. But what has to be said, for the first, if not also the last,time in reference to Beyle's fiction, is that it is interesting.

  [Sidenote: Julien Sorel and Mathilde de la Mole.]

  The interest depends almost entirely--I really do not think it would berash to say entirely--upon the hero and one of the heroines. The otherpersonages are dramatically and psychologically competent, but Beylehas--perhaps save in one or two cases intentionally--made them somethingof _comparses_ or "supers." There may be two opinions about the otherheroine, Madame de Renal, Julien Sorel's first and last love, his victimin two senses and directly the cause of his death, though he was notdirectly the cause of hers. She seems to me merely what the French calla _femmelette_, feebly amorous, feebly fond of her children, feeblyestranged from and unfaithful to her husband, feebly though fatallyjealous of and a traitress to her lover--feebly everything. Shakespeareor Miss Austen[134] could have made such a character interesting, Beylecould not. Nor do the other "seconds"--Julien's brutal peasant fatherand brothers, the notables of Verrieres, the husband, M. de Renal(himself a _gentillatre_, as well as a man of business, a bully, and ablockhead), and the hero's just failure of a father-in-law, the Marquisde la Mole--seem to me to come up to the mark. But, after all, theyfurnish forth the action, and are necessary in their various ways to setforth the character of that hero and his second love, almost in themediaeval sense his wife and his widow, Mathilde de la Mole, heiress,great lady, _fille folle de son corps_, and, in a kind of way, QueenWhims.

  Julien Sorel, allowance being made for his date, is one of the mostremarkable heroes of fiction. He is physically handsome, in factbeautiful,[135] intellectually very clever, and possessed, in especial,of a marvellous memory; also, though not well educated early, capable oflearning anything in a very short time--but presented in thesefavourable lights without any exaggeration. A distinguished Lord Justicewas said by his admirers, at the beginning of his manhood, to haveobtained more marks in examinations than any youthful person in theUnited Kingdom: and Julien, with equal opportunities, would probablyhave done the same in France. Morally, in no limited sense of the word,he does not possess a single good quality, and does possess most badones, with the possible exceptions of gluttony and avarice. That, beingin each case a family tutor or _employe_ under trust, he seduces thewife of his first employer and the daughter of the second, cannot, inthe peculiar circumstances, be said to count. This is, as it were, thestarting-point, the necessary handicap, in the competition of this kindof novel. It is as he is, and in reference to what he does, after thisis put aside, that he has to be considered. He is not a stage villain,though he has the peculiar, and in the circumstances important, ifhighly-to-be-deprecated habit of carrying pocket-pistols. He is not aByronic hero with a terrible but misty past. He is not like Valmont ofthe _Liaisons Dangereuses_,[136] a professional and passionlesslady-killer. He is not a swindler nor (though he sometimes comes near tothis also) a conspirator like Count Fosco of _The Woman in White_. Onemight make a long list of such negatives if it were worth while. He isonly an utterly selfish, arrogant, envious, and generallybad-blooded[137] young man, whom circumstances partly, and his ownmisdeeds helping them, first corrupt and then destroy. You neversympathise with him for one moment, except in a peculiar fashion to benoted presently; but at the same time he neither quite bores you norquite disgusts you. _Homo est_, and it is Beyle's having made him sothat makes Beyle a sort of genius and much more than a sort of novelist.

  But I am not certain that Mathilde is not even a greater creation,though again it is, except quite towards the end, equally impossible tolike her. _Femina est_, though sometimes _furens_, oftener still_furiosa_ (in a still wider sense than that in which Mr. Norris has[138]ingeniously "feminated" Orlando _Furioso_), and, in part of her conductalready alluded to, as destitute of any morality as Julien himself.Although there could hardly be (and no doubt had better not be) manylike her, she is real and true, and there are not a few redeemingfeatures in her artistically and even personally. She is, as has beensaid, both rich and noble, the famous lover of the third ValoisMarguerite being an (I suppose collateral) ancestor of hers.[139] Herfather is not merely a patrician but a Minister at the close of theFrench Restoration; she may marry any one she likes; and has, in fact, atrain of admirers whom she alternately cajoles and snubs. Julien istaken into the household as half private secretary, half librarian; isespecially favoured by her father, and treated by her brother (one ofBeyle's few thoroughly good fellows) almost on equal terms. But his badblood and his want of breeding make him stiff and mysterious, andMathilde takes a perverse fancy to him, the growth of which is skilfullydrawn. Although she is nothing so little as a Lelia or an Indiana or aValentine (_vide_ next chapter), she is idiosyncratically romantic, andat last it is a case of ladders up to the window, "the irreparable," andvarious wild performances on her part and her lover's. But this is allcomparatively banal. Beyle's touch of genius only reappears later. Anextraordinary but (when one comes to think of it) not in the leastunnatural series of "ups and downs" follows. Julien's bad blood andvulgar nature make him presume on the advantage he has obtained;Mathilde's _morgue_ and hot-headedness make her feel degraded by whatshe has given. She neglects him and he becomes quite frantic about_her_; he takes sudden dudgeon and she becomes frantically desirous of_him_. This spiritual or emotional man-and-woman-in-the-weather-housebusiness continues; but at last, with ambages and minor peripeteiasimpossible to abstract, it so comes about that the great and proudMarquis de La Mole, startlingly but not quite improbably, chooses torecognise this traitor and seducer as a possible by-blow of nobility,gets him a commission, endows him handsomely, and all but gives hisconsent to a marriage.

  Then the final revolution comes. With again extraordinary but, as it istold, again not inconceivable audacity, Julien refers for character tohis first mistress in both senses, Madame de Renal, and she "gives himaway." The marquis breaks off the treaties, and Julien, leaving hisquarters, journeys down to Verrieres and shoots Madame de Renal (withthe pocket-pistols) in church. She does not die, and is not even veryseriously wounded; but he is tried, is (according, it would seem, to astate of French law, which contrasts most remarkably with one's recentknowledge of it) condemned, and after a time is executed for a murderwhich has not been committed. Mathilde (who is to bear him a child andalways considers herself his wife) and Madame de Renal both visit him inprison, the former making immense efforts to save him. But Julien,consistently with his character all through, is now rather bored byMathilde and exceedingly fond of Madame de Renal, who dies shortlyafter him. What becomes of Mathilde we are not told, except that shedevotes herself to her paulo-post-future infant. The mere summary mayseem rather preposterous; the book is in a way so. But it is also, in noordinary sense, once more real and true. It has sometimes been regardedas a childish, but I believe it to be a true, criterion of novels thatthe reader should feel as if he would like to have had personal dealingswith the personages. I should very much like to have shot[140] JulienSorel, though it would have been rather an honour for him. And I shouldvery much like to have made Mathilde fall in love with me. As for Madamede Renal, she was only good for suckling fools and telling tales out ofschool. But I do not find fault with Beyle for drawing her, and she,too, is very human.

  In fact the book, pleasant or unpleasant, if we reflect on what theFrench novel was at the time, deserves a very high place. Compare itwith others, and nowhere, except in Balzac, will you find anything likeit for firm analysis of character, while I confess that it seems to meto be more strictly human of this world, and at the same time moreoriginal,[141] than a good deal of the _Comedie_.

  [Sidenote: The resuscitated work--_Lamiel_.]

  The question, "Would a novelist in altered circumstances have given usmore or better novels?" is sometimes treated as _ultra vires_
or _nihilad rem_ on the critic's part. I myself have been accused rather oflimiting than of extending the province of the literary critic; yet Ithink this question is, sometimes at least, in place. If so, it canseldom be more in place than with Beyle, first because of the unusuallymperfect character of his actual published work; and secondly, becauseof the still more unusual abundance of half-done work, or of fragmentsof self-criticism, which what has been called the "Beyle resurrection"of the close of the last century has furnished. Indeed the unfinishedand scarcely more than half-drafted novel of _Lamiel_ almost by itselfsuggests the question and supplies the answer. That answer--except fromfavourers of the grime-novel which, oddly enough, whether by coincidenceor common causation became so popular at about the time of this"resurrection"--can hardly be favourable. _Lamiel_ is a very grubbylittle book. The eponymous heroine is adopted as a child by a parishbeadle and his wife, who do not at all maltreat her, except by bringingher up in ways of extreme propriety, which she detests, taking delightin the histories of Mandrin, Cartouche and Co. At early maidenhood sheis pitched upon as _lectrice_, and in a way favourite, by the great ladyof the neighbourhood, the Duchess of Miossens; and in this positionfirst attracts the attention of a peculiarly diabolical little dwarfdoctor, who, bar the comic[142] element, reminds one rather of Quilp.His designs are, however, baulked in a most Beylian manner; for Lamiel(who, by a pleasing chance, was at first called "Amiel"--a delightfully_other_ Amiel!) coolly bestows some money upon a peasant to "teach herwhat love is," and literally asks the Gebirian question about the ocean,"Is this all?" after receiving the lesson. Further, in the more and moreunfinished parts of the book, she levants for a time with the youngduke, quits him, becomes a professional hetaera in Paris, but nevertakes any fancy to the business of her avocation till she meets anall-conquering criminal, Valbayre.[143] The scenario tells us that,Valbayre having been caught by justice, she sets fire to the Palacethereof, and her own bones are discovered in the ashes.

  This, though Beyle at least meant to season the misanthropy with irony(he might be compared with Meredith for some slightly cryptic views of"the Comic Spirit"), is rather poor stuff, and certainly shows noimprovement or likelihood of improvement on the earlier productions. Itis even somewhat lamentable, not so much for the presence of grime asbecause of the absence of any other attraction. _Le Rouge et le Noir_ isnot exactly rose-pink, but it derives hardly any, if any, interest fromits smirches of mud and blood and blackness. In _Lamiel_ there is littleelse. Moreover, that unchallengeable "possibility of humanity" whichredeems not merely _Le Rouge et le Noir_ but the less exciting books, iswanting here. Sansfin, the doctor, is a mere monstrosity in mind as wellas in body, and, except perhaps when she ejaculates (as more brieflyreported above), "Comment! ce fameux amour, _ce n'est que ca_?" Lamielherself is not made interesting.

  [Sidenote: The _Nouvelles Inedites_.]

  The _Vie de Henri Brulard_, of high importance for a History ofNovelists, is in strictness outside the subject of a historian of theNovel, though it might be adduced to strengthen the remarks made onRousseau's _Confessions_.[144] And the rest of the "resurrected" matteris also more autobiographical, or at best illustrative of Beyle'srestless and "masterless" habit of pulling his work to pieces--of "neverbeing able to be ready" (as a deservedly unpopular language hasit)--than contributory to positive novel-achievement. But the first andby far the most substantive of the _Nouvelles Inedites_, which hisamiable but not very strong-minded literary executor, Colomb, publishedsoon after his death, needs a little notice.

  [Sidenote: _Le Chasseur Vert._]

  _Le Chasseur Vert_[145] (which had three other titles, three successiveprefaces, and in its finished, or rather unfinished, form is the salvageof five folio volumes of MS., the rest being at best sketched and atworst illegible) contains, in what we have of it, the account of thetribulations of a young sub-lieutenant of Lancers (with a great deal ofmoney, a cynical but rather agreeable banker-papa, an adoring mother,and the record of an expulsion from the Polytechnique for supposedRepublicanism) suddenly pitchforked into garrison, soon after theRevolution of July, at Nancy. Here, in the early years of the Julymonarchy, the whole of decent society is Legitimist; a very small butnot easily suppressible minority Republican; while officialdom, civiland military, forms a peculiar _juste milieu_, supporting itself byespionage and by what Their Majesties of the present moment, the TradeUnions, call "victimisation," but in a constant state of alarm for itsposition, and "looking over its shoulder" with a sort of threefoldsquint, at the white flag, the eagles--and the guillotine. Nothingreally happens, but it takes 240 pages to bring us to an actual meetingbetween Lieutenant Lucien Leeuwen and his previously at distance adoredwidow, the Marquise de Chasteller.

  The book is not a _very_ good novel, even as a fragment, and probablynothing would ever have made it so as a whole. But there is goodnovel-stuff in it, and it is important to a student of the novel andalmost indispensable to a student of this novelist. Of the cynicalpapa--who, when his son comes to him in a "high-falutin" mood, requestshim to go to his (the papa's) opera-box, to replace his sire with someagreeable girl-officials of that same institution, and to spend at least200 francs on a supper for them at the Rocher--one would gladly seemore. Of the barrack (or rather _not_-barrack) society at Nancy, thesight given, though not agreeable, is interesting, and to any one whoknew something of our old army, especially before the abolition ofpurchase, very curious. There is no mess-room and apparently no commonlife at all, except on duty and at the "pension" hotel-meals, towhich,--rather, it would seem, at the arbitrary will of the colonel thanby "regulation,"--you have to subscribe, though you may, and indeedmust, live in lodgings exactly like a _particulier_. Of thesocial-political life of the place we see rather too much, for Beyle,not content with making the politics which he does not like makethemselves ridiculous--or perhaps not being able to do so--himself tellsus frequently that they _are_ ridiculous, which is not equallyeffective. So also, instead of putting severe or "spiritual" speeches inLucien's mouth, he tells us that they _were_ spiritual or severe, anassurance which, of course, we receive with due politeness, but whichdoes not give us as much personal delectation as might be supplied bythe other method. No doubt this and other things are almost directresults of that preference for _recit_ over semi-dramatic evolution ofthe story by deed and word, which has been noticed. But they aredamaging results all the same: and, after making the fairest allowancefor its incomplete condition, the thing may be said to support, evenmore than _Lamiel_ does, the conclusion already based upon theself-published stories (and most of all upon that best of them, _LeRouge et le Noir_) that Beyle could never have given us a thoroughlyhit-off novel.

  [Sidenote: Beyle's place in the story.]

  Still, there is always something unfair in making use of "Remains," andfor my part I do not think that, unless they are of extraordinary merit,they should ever be published. "Death _should_ clear all scores" in thisway as in others. Yet no really critical person will think the worse ofBeyle's published work because of these _anecdota_, though they may, asactually before us, be taken as throwing some light on what is not sogood in the _publicata_. There can be no doubt that Beyle occupies avery important position in the history of the novel, and not of theFrench novel only, as the first, or almost the first, analyst of theugly for fictitious purposes, and as showing singular power in hisanalysis. Unfortunately his synthetic gifts were not equally great. Hehad strange difficulty in making his stories _march_; he only now andthen got them to _run_; and though the real life of his characters hasbeen acknowledged, it is after all a sort of "Life-in-Death," a newmanifestation of the evil power of that mysterious entity whomColeridge, if he did not discover, first named and produced inquasi-flesh, though he left us without any indication of more than onetiny and accidental part of her dread kingdom.

  He has thus the position of _pere de famille_, whether (to repeat theold joke) of a _famille deplorable_ in the moral, not the sentimental,sense, must, I suppose, be left matter of opinion.
The plentiful crop ofmonographs about him since M. Stryienski's Pompeian explorations andpublications is in a manner--if only in a manner--justified by thenumerous followers--not always or perhaps often conscious followers, andso even more important--in his footsteps. Nobody can say that thepicaresque novelists, whether in their original country or when thefashion had spread, were given to _berquinades_ or fairy-tales. Nobodycan say that the tale-writers who preceded and followed them wereapostles of virtue or painters of Golden-Age scenes. But, with someexceptions (chiefly Italian) among the latter, they did not, unlesstheir aim were definitely tragical--an epithet which one could show, onirrefragable Aristotelian principles, to be rarely if ever applicable toBeyle and his school--they did not, as the common phrase goes, "take agloomy view" only. There were cakes and ale; and the cakes did notalways give internal pains, nor the ale a bad headache. As even Hazlitt(who has been selected, not without reason, as in many ways like Beyle)said of himself on his death-bed, rather to some folks' surprise thoughnot to mine, most of the characters "had a happy life," though thehappiness might be chequered: and some of them were "good." It isscarcely an exaggeration to say that in Beyle's books happiness does notexist, and virtue has hardly a place. There are some characters who maybe said to be neutral or "on the line"; they may be not definitelyunhappy or definitely bad. But this is about as far as he ever goes inthat direction. And accordingly he and his followers have the fault ofone-sidedness; they may (he did) see life steadily, but they do not seeit whole. There is no need to preach a sermon on the text: in this bookthere is full need to record the fact.[146]

  * * * * *

  [Sidenote: Balzac--conditions of the present dealing.]

  In dealing with Beyle's greater companion here there are certainthings--not exactly difficulties, but circumstances conditioning thetreatment--which should be stated. That it is well to know somethingabout your subject has been an accepted doctrine with all save veryyoung persons, idle paradoxers, and (according to Sir Walter Scott) theScottish Court of Session in former days.[147] That it is also well notto know too much about it has sometimes been maintained, without anyidleness in either sense of the word; the excess being thought likely tocause weariness, "staleness," and absence of interest. If this werenecessarily so, it might be better for the writer once more to leavethis part of the chapter (since at least the heading of it could notpossibly be omitted in the history) a blank or a constellation ofasterisks in Sternian fashion. For it has fallen to his lot to translateone whole novel of Balzac's,[148] to edit a translation of the entire_Comedie_,[149] superintending some of the volumes in narrow detail, andstudying each in short, but (intentionally at least) thorough_Introductions_, with a very elaborate preface-study of the whole; toread all Balzac's rather voluminous miscellanea from the earlynovel-attempts to posthumous things, including letters; and, finally, todiscuss the subject once more, with the aid or burden of many previouscommentaries, in a long _Review_ article.[150] Nevertheless, he does notfeel that any disgust forbids while a clear duty calls: and he hopes toshow that it is not always necessary to weary of quails as in theBiblical, partridges as in the old _fabliau_, and pigeons in the Dumas_fils_ (_v. inf._) version of the Parable of Satiety.

  [Sidenote: Limitations of Subject.]

  In no case, however, not even in that of Victor Hugo, is the easementgiven by the general plan of the book, in regard to biographical andother not strictly literary details, more welcome. We shall say nothingon the point whether the author of the _Comedie Humaine_ should becalled M. de Balzac or M. Balzac or M. Balssa; nothing about his family,his friends, his enemies, his strangely long-deferred, and, when itcame, as strangely ill-fated marriage; little, though somethingnecessarily, about his tastes, his commercial and other enterprises, andso forth; and not very much--something here also becoming obligatory--onhis manner of producing the immense and wonderful work which he has leftus. Those who are curious about such things will find ample satisfactionin the labours of M. Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, of MM. Christophe andCerfbeer, and of others.[151] Here he is, for us, Honore de Balzac,author of the _Juvenilia_ (saved from, as it is understood, a largerbulk still) in ten volumes; of the mighty "Comedy" itself, and, moreincidentally, of the considerable epistolary and miscellaneousproduction referred to above. The manner in which this enormous outputwas put out has perhaps too much to do with its actual character to bepassed over in total silence. It represents thirty years' working timealmost entirely spent upon it,[152] the alternatives being theabove-mentioned commercial speculations (which were almost invariablyunfortunate, and involved him, during the whole of his career, incomplicated indebtedness) and a good deal of travel, very frequentlyconnected with these speculations. Of the society which formed so largea part of the life of the time and of which he wrote so often, Balzacsaw little. He worked at enormous stretches, and he rewrote his work, inMS., in proof and in temporarily final print, with insatiable andindefatigable industry. To no writer could the commonplace extravaganceabout burning the candle at both ends be applied so truly as to Balzac.Only, his candle was shaped like a wheel with no felloes, and he burntit at the end of every spoke and at the nave as well. How he managed tolast, even to fifty, is one of the major curiosities of literarybiography.

  [Sidenote: And of Balzac himself.]

  Of the three divisions of this vast but far from chaotic production, themiscellaneous, of course, concerns us least. It shows Balzac as afailure of a dramatist, a critic of very varying competence,[153] not aparticularly effective _writer_ merely as such, not possessed of muchlogical power, but having pretty wide interests and abundantly providedwith what we may call the odd tools of the novelist's workshop. As acorrespondent his writing has absolutely none of what may be called the"departmental" interest of great letter-writers--of Madame de Sevigne orLady Mary, of Horace Walpole or Cowper; its attraction is not epistolarybut wholly autobiographic. And it is only fair to say that, despiteBalzac's immense and intense self-centredness, it leaves one on thewhole with a much better opinion of him as a man than might be derivedfrom his books or from the anecdotes about him. To adapt one of the bestknown of these, there was, in fact, nothing real to him but Honore deBalzac, Honore de Balzac's works and schemes, and, in rare cases (ofwhich Madame Hanska was the chief), Honore de Balzac's loves. Theseconstituted his subject, his universe of thought and feeling, of actionand passion. But at the same time he stands apart from all the othergreat egotists. He differs from those of whom Byron is the chief in thathe does not introduce himself prominently in his fictitious creations.He does not, like those who may take their representative in Goethe,regard everything merely as it relates to his personality. His chiefpeculiarity, his unique literary character, and, it may be added atonce, his greatness and his weakness, all consist in the fact that heevolves a new world out of himself. Now and then he may have taken anactual human model--George Sand, Madame d'Agoult, Madame de Castries,Liszt, Latouche,[154] Remusat--as many others as anybody likes. Butalways these had not merely to receive the Balzacian image andsuperscription, but to be transmuted into creatures of a _BalzaciumSidus_. And it is the humanity of this planet or system, much more thanof our world, whereof his _Comedie_ is the Comedy--a _ComedieBalzacienne_.

  [Sidenote: Balzac's "general ideas."]

  But, it has been said, and the saying has been attributed to no less acritic than M. Faguet, there are no "general ideas" in Balzac.[155] Onecan only reply, "Heavens! Why should there be?" The celebrated unreasonof "going to a gin-palace for a leg of mutton" (already quoted, andperhaps to be quoted again) is sound and sensible as compared withasking general ideas from a novelist. They are not quite absolutelyforbidden to him, though he will have to be very careful lest they getin his way. But they are most emphatically not his business, except asvery rare and very doubtful means to a quite different end, meansabsolutely insufficient by themselves and exceedingly difficult tocombine with the other means which--more or fewer of them--are not onlysufficient but necessary. The "slice o
f human life," not necessarily,but preferably ordinary, presenting probable and interestingcharacters, connected by sufficient plot, diversified and adorned bydescriptive and other devices, and abundantly furnished with theconversation of men and women of this world, the whole forming such awhole as will amuse, thrill, affect, and in other ways, to use theall-important word once more, _interest_ the reader,--that is what iswanted. And this definition is as rigid at least as the Aristoteliandefinition of tragedy and perhaps more exhaustive, as concerns thenovel, including, with the necessary modifications, the romance--and theromance, including, with the necessary modifications, the novel. In it"general ideas," unless a very special and not at all usual meaning isattached to the term, can have no right of place. They may be broughtin, as almost anything may be brought in if the writer is Samson enoughto bring it. But they cannot be demanded of him as facts, images,emotions, style, and a very large number of other things can or may be,not, of course, all at once, but in larger or smaller selection. Generalideas may and perhaps should be demanded from the philosopher, thehistorian, the political student. From the poet and the novelist theycannot be. And that they should be so demanded is one of the chiefinstances of what seems to the present writer to be the greatest mistakeof French novel, as of other, criticism--its persistent relapse upon therule-system and its refusal to judge by the result.[156]

  It is all the more unreasonable to demand general _ideas_ from Balzachimself, because he is so liberal of general _imagery_, and what ismore, general _prosopopoeia_. Be the Balzacian world real, as somewould have it to be, or be it removed from our mundane reality by thesubtle "other-planetary" influence which is apparent to others, itscomplexity, its fullness, its variety, its busy and by no meansunsystematic life and motion, cannot be denied. Why on earth cannotpeople be content with asking Platonism from Plato and Balzacity fromBalzac? At any rate, it is Balzacity which will be the subject of thefollowing pages, and if anybody wants anything else let him goelsewhere.

  [Sidenote: Abstinence from abstract.]

  There is hardly likely to be much grumbling at the absence of suchdetailed abstract or survey of individual books as has been given incases of what may seem to be much less importance. To begin with, such asurvey as is possible[157] exists already from these hands in theIntroductions to the translated edition above referred to, and toparaphrase or refashion it here would probably occupy a hundred pages,if not more. Nor would the plan, elsewhere adopted, of analysing afreshone, or two, or more examples, as representative, be satisfactory.Although Balzac is in a sense one of the most intensely individual ofall novelists, his individuality, as in a very few others of thegreatest cases, cannot be elicited from particular works. Just as_Hamlet_ will give you no idea of the probable treatment of _As You LikeIt_, so _Eugenie Grandet_ contains no key to _La Cousine Bette_. Eventhe groups into which he himself rather empirically, if not quitearbitrarily, separated the _Comedie_, though they lend themselves alittle more to specification, do not yield very much to the classifier.The _Comedie_, once more, is a world--a world open to the reader, "allbefore him." Chronological order may tell him a little about Balzac, butit will not tell him very much about Balzac's work that he cannot gainfrom the individual books, except in the very earliest stages. There isno doubt that the _Oeuvres de Jeunesse_, if not very delightful to thereader (I have myself read them not without pleasure), are veryinstructive; the instruction increases, while the pleasure is actuallymultiplied, when you come to _Les Chouans_ and the _Peau de Chagrin_.But it is, after a fashion, only beyond these that the true Balzacbegins, and the beginning is, to a large extent, a reaction fromprevious work in consequence of a discovery that the genius, withoutwhich he had acknowledged that it was all up with him,[158] did not liethat way, and that he had no hope of finding it there. Not that there isno genius in the two books mentioned; on the contrary, it is there firstto be found, and in _La Peau_ is of the first order. But their ways arenot the ways in which he was to find it--and himself--more specially.

  [Sidenote: The _Oeuvres de Jeunesse_.]

  As to _Argow le Pirate_[159] and _Jane la Pale_ (I have never ceasedlamenting that he did not keep the earlier title, _Wann-Chlore_) and therest, they have interest of various kinds. Some of it has been glancedat already--you cannot fully appreciate Balzac without them. But thereis another kind of interest, perhaps not of very general appeal, but notto be neglected by the historian. They are almost the only accessiblebody, except Pigault-Lebrun's latest and Paul de Kock's earliest, of thepopular fiction _before_ 1830, of the stuff of which, as previouslymentioned, Ducray-Duminil, the lesser Ducange, and many others arerepresentatives, but representatives difficult to get at. This class offiction, which arose in all parts of Europe during the last years of theeighteenth century and the earlier of the nineteenth, has very similarcharacteristics, though the examples differ very slightly in differentcountries. What are known with us as the Terror Novel, the MinervaPress, the Silver Fork school, etc. etc., all have their part in it, andeven higher influences, such as Scott's, are not wanting. _Hand'Islande_ and _Bug-Jargal_ themselves belong to some extent to theclass, and I am far from certain that the former is at all better thansome of these _juvenilia_ of Balzac's. But as a whole they are of courselittle more than curiosities.

  Whether these curiosities are more widely known than they were somefive-and-twenty, or thirty, years ago, when Mr. Louis Stevenson was theonly friend of mine who had read them, and when even special writers onBalzac sometimes unblushingly confessed that they had not, I cannot say.Although printed in the little fifty-five-volume[160] edition which forso many years represented Balzac, they were excluded, as noted above,from the statelier "Definitive," and so may have once more "gone intoabscondence." I do not want to read them again, but I no more repent thetime once spent on them than I did earlier. In fact I really do notthink any one ought to talk about Balzac who has not at least gainedsome knowledge of them, for many of their defects remained with him whenhe got rid of the others. These defects are numerous enough and seriousenough. The books are nothing if not uncritical, generally extravagant,and sometimes (especially in _Jean Louis_) appallingly dull. Scarf-pins,made of poisoned fish-bones (_Argow le Pirate_), extinction of virginsunder copper bells (_Le Centenaire_), attempts at fairy-tales (_LaDerniere Fee_) jostle each other. The weaker historical kind figureslargely in _L'Excommunie_ (one of the least bad), _L'Israelite_,_L'Heritiere de Birague_, _Dom Gigadas_. There is a _Vicaire desArdennes_ (remarkably different from him of Wakefield), which is a kindof introduction to _Argow le Pirate_, and which, again, is not theworst. When I formerly wrote about these curious productions, afterreading them, I had not read Pigault-Lebrun, and therefore did notperceive, what I now see to be an undoubted fact, that Balzac was,sometimes at least, trying to follow in Pigault's popular footsteps. Buthe had not that writer's varied knowledge of actual life or his power oftelling a story, and though he for the most part avoided Pigault's_grossierete_, the chaotic plots, the slovenly writing, and otherdefects of his model abode with him.

  [Sidenote: _Les Chouans._]

  There are not many more surprising things, especially _in pari materia_,to be found in literary history than the sun-burst of _Les Chouans_after this darkness-that-can-be-felt of the early melodramas. Not that_Les Chouans_ is by any means a perfect novel, or even a great one. Itsnarrative drags, in some cases, almost intolerably; the grasp ofcharacter, though visible, is inchoate; the plot is rather a polyptychof separate scenes than a connected action; you see at once that theauthor has changed his model to Sir Walter and think how much better SirWalter would have done the thing. But there is a strange air of "comingalive" in some of the scenes, though they are too much separated, as inthe case of the finale and of the execution of the rather hardly usedtraitor earlier. These possess a character of thrill which may be lookedfor in vain through all the ten volumes of the _Oeuvres de Jeunesse_.Montauran _is_ a hero in more than one sense, and Mlle. de Verneuil isstill more a heroine. Had Balzac worked her out as he worked
out others,who did not deserve it so well, later, she might have been one of thegreat characters in fiction. Even as it is, the "jour sans lendemain,"which in one sense unites, and in another parts, her and her lover forever, is one of the most really passionate things that the French novel,in its revival, had yet seen. Besides this, there is a sort of extrinsicappeal in the book, giving that curious atmosphere referred to already,and recalling the old prints of the earth yawning in patches and animalsrearing themselves from it at the Creation. The names and personages ofHulot and Corentin were to be well known later to readers of the "fiftyvolumes," and even the ruffianly patriot[161] Marche-a-Terre had hisfuture.

  [Sidenote: _La Peau de Chagrin._]

  The second[162] blast of the horn with which Balzac challenged admissionto the Inner Sanctuaries or strongholds of the novel, _La Peau deChagrin_, had that character of _difference_ which one notices notseldom in the first worthy works of great men of letters--the absence ofthe mould and the rut. _Les Chouans_ was a Waverley novel Gallicised andBalzacified; _La Peau de Chagrin_ is a cross between the supernaturalromance and the novel of psychology. It is one of the greatest ofBalzac's books. The idea of the skin--a new "wishing" talisman, whichshrinks with every exercise of the power it gives, and so threatensextinction at once of wishing and living--is of course not wholly novel,though refreshed in detail. But then nothing is wholly novel, and ifanything could be it would probably be worthless. The endless changes ofthe eternal substance make the law, the curse, and the blessing of life.In the working out of his theme it may possibly be objected that Balzachas not _interested_ the reader quite enough in his personages--that heseems in a way to be thinking more of the play than of the actors or theaudience. His "orgie" is certainly not much of a success; few orgies inprint are, except when they are burlesqued. But, on the other hand, thecuriosity-shop is splendid. Yet it is not on the details of the book,important as these have been allowed to be throughout Balzac, thatattention should be mainly concentrated. The point of it is the way inwhich the necessary atmosphere of bad dream is kept up throughout, yetwith an appropriate contrast of comparatively ordinary life. A competentcritic who read _Les Chouans_, knowing nothing about its author or hiswork, should have said, "Here is more than a promising craftsman";reading _La Peau de Chagrin_ in the same conditions he should have said,"Here is a great, though by no means a faultless, artist." One who readboth ought to have had no doubt as to the coming of something andsomebody extraordinary.

  [Sidenote: The short stories.]

  Thenceforward Balzac, though hardly ever faultless except in shortstories, was almost always great, and showed what may be called adiffused greatness, to which there are few parallels in the history ofthe novel. Some of the tales are simply wonderful. I cannot think ofany one else, even Merimee, who could have done _La GrandeBreteche_--the story of a lover who, rather than betray his mistress,allows himself to suffer, without a word, the fate of a nun who hasbroken her vows--as Balzac has done it. _La Recherche de l'Absolu_ isone, and _Le Chef-d'oeuvre Inconnu_ is another, of the greatest knownmasterpieces in the world of their kind. _La Fille aux Yeux d'Or_ and_Une Passion dans le Desert_ have not the least need of their"indexable" qualities to validate them. In the most opposite styles_Jesus Christ en Flandre_ and _La Messe de l'Athee_ have their warmestadmirers. In fact it is scarcely too much to say that, in the whole listof nearer two than one score--as they were published in the oldcollection from _Le Bal de Sceaux_ to _Maitre Cornelius_--scarcely anyare bad or insignificant, few mediocre, and not a few equal, or hardlyinferior, to those specially pointed out just now. As so oftenhappens, the short story estopped Balzac from some of his usualdelinquencies--over-detail, lingering treatment, etc.,--and encouragedhis virtues--intensity, grandeur, and idiosyncratic tone.

  [Sidenote: The _Contes Drolatiques_.]

  Of his one considerable collection of such stories--the _ContesDrolatiques_--it is not possible to speak quite so favourably as awhole; yet the reduction of favour need not be much. Of its greatestthing, _La Succube_, there have hardly been two opinions among competentand unprejudiced judges. "Pity and terror" are there well justified oftheir manipulator. The sham Old French, if not absolutely "according toCocker" (or such substitute for Cocker as may be made and provided byscholarly authority), is very much more effective than most such things.Not a few of the stories are good and amusing in themselves, though ofcourse the votaries of prunes and prism should keep clear of them. Thebook has perhaps only one serious fault, that of the inevitable and nodoubt invited suggestion of, and comparison with, Rabelais. In somepoints this will hold not so badly, for Balzac had narrative power ofthe first order when he gave it scope; the deficiencies of mere stylewhich sometimes affect his modern French do not appear so much in this_pastiche_, and he could make broad jokes well enough. But--and this"but" is rather a terrible one--the saving and crowning grace ofPantagruelist humour is not in him, except now and then in its grimmerand less catholic variety or manifestation. And this absence haunts onein these _Contes Drolatiques_, though it is to some extent compensatedby the presence of a "sentiment" rare elsewhere in Balzac.

  [Sidenote: Notes on select larger books: _Eugenie Grandet_.]

  Turning to the longer books, the old double difficulty of selection andomission comes on one in full force. There are, I suppose, fewBalzacians who have not special favourites, but probably _EugenieGrandet_, _Le Pere Goriot_, and the two divisions of _Les ParentsPauvres_ would unite most suffrages. If I myself--who am not exactly aBalzacian, though few can admire him more, and not very many, I think,have had occasion for knowing his work better--put _Eugenie Grandet_ atthe head of all the "scenes" of ordinary life, it is most certainly notbecause of its inoffensiveness. It _is_ perhaps partly because, in spiteof that inoffensiveness, it fixes on one a grasp superior to anything ofBeyle's and equal to anything of Flaubert's or Maupassant's. But thereal cause of admiration is the nature of the grasp itself. Here, andperhaps here only--certainly here in transcendence--Balzac grappleswith, and vanquishes, the bare, stern, unadorned, unbaited, ironic factsof life. It is not an intensely interesting book; it is certainly not adelightful one; you do not want to read it very often. Still, when youhave read it you have come to one of the ultimate things: the_flammantia moenia_ of the world of fiction forbid any one to gofurther at this particular point. And when this has been said of anovel, all has been said of the quality of the novelist's genius, thoughnot of its quantity or variety.

  [Sidenote: _Le Pere Goriot_ and _Les Parents Pauvres_.]

  The other three books selected have greater "interest" and, in the caseof the _Parents Pauvres_ at least, much greater variety; but they do notseem to me to possess equal consummateness. _Le Pere Goriot_ is in itsown way as pathetic as _Eugenie Grandet_, and Balzac has saved itspathos from being as irritating as that of the all but idioticgrandfather in _The Old Curiosity Shop_. But the situation still has ashare of that fatal helpless ineffectiveness which Mr. Arnold so justlydenounced. Of the remaining pair, _La Cousine Bette_ is, I suppose,again the favourite; but I am not a backer. I have in other placesexpressed my opinion that if Valerie Marneffe is part-model[163] ofBecky Sharp, which is not, I believe, absolutely certain, the copyfar--indeed infinitely--exceeds the original, and not least in the factsthat Becky is attractive while Valerie is not, and that there is anyamount of possibility in her. I should not wonder if, some day, anovelist took it into his head to show Becky as she would have been ifshe had had those thousands a year for which, with their accompanyingchances of respectability, she so pathetically sighed. Now Valerie is,and always must have been, a _catin_, and nothing else. Lisbeth, again,though I admit her possibility, is not, to me, made quite probable.Hulot, very possible and probable indeed, does not interest or amuse me,and the angelic Adeline is good but dull. In fact the book, by its verypower, throws into disastrous eminence that absence of _delightfulness_which is Balzac's great want, uncompensated by the presence of themagnificence which is his great resource. _La Peau de Chagrin_ and someof the
smaller things have this relief; _La Cousine Bette_ has not. Andtherefore I think that, on the whole, _Le Cousin Pons_ is the better ofthe two, though it may seem to some weaker, further "below proof."Everything in it is possible and probable, and though the comedy israther rueful, it is comedy. It is a play; its companion is rather toomuch of a sermon.

  [Sidenote: Others--the general "scenic" division.]

  The "Scenes de la Vie Privee" (to pass to a rapid general survey of the"Acts" of the Comedy) provide an especially large number of shortstories, almost the only ones of length being _Modeste Mignon_ and_Beatrix_, a strongly contrasted couple. _Modeste Mignon_ is perhaps oneof the best of Balzac's _second_ best. _Beatrix_, a book of more power,appeals chiefly to those who may be interested in the fact (whichapparently _is_ the fact) that the book contains, almost more than anyother, figures taken from real people, such as George Sand--the"Camille" of the novel--and some of those about her. The "Scenes de laVie de Province" are richer in "magnums." _Eugenie Grandet_ is here,with a sort of companion, cheerfuller generally, in _Ursule Mirouet_.The shorter stories are grouped under the titles of _Les Parisiens enProvince_ (with the first appearance of _Gaudissart_) and _LesRivalites_. _Le Lys dans la Vallee_ (which one is sometimes anxiouslybegged to distinguish from "the lily _of_ the valley," otherwise_muguet_) holds, for some, an almost entirely unique place in Balzac'swork, or one shared only in part by _Memoires de Deux Jeunes Mariees_. Ihave never, I think, cared much for either. But there is more strengthin two pairs of volumes which contain some of the author'smasterpieces--_Les Celibataires_ with _Pierrette_, _Le Cure de Tours_,and the powerful, if not particularly pleasant, _Un Menage deGarcon_;[164] and _Illusions Perdues_, running up well with _Un GrandHomme de Province a Paris_ and the semi-idyllic _Eve et David_.

  But I suppose the "Scenes of Parisian Life" seem to be the citadel tomost people. Here are three of the four books specially selected above,_Le Pere Goriot_ and both the constituents of _Les Parents Pauvres_.Here are the _Splendeurs et Miseres des Courtisanes_, which some rankamong the very first; not a few short stories in the volumes takingtheir titles from _La Derniere Incarnation de Vautrin_ and _La MaisonNucingen_; with _Cesar Birotteau_ (_Balzac on Bankruptcy_, as it hasbeen profanely called) and the celebrated _Histoire des Treize_.

  This last, I confess frankly, has always bored me, even though thevolume contains _La Fille aux Yeux d'Or_. The idea of a secret societyin Society itself was not new; it was much more worthy of Sue or Souliethan of Balzac, and it does not seem to me to have been interestinglyworked out. But perhaps this is due to my perverse and elsewhereconfessed objection to crime and conspiracy novels generally.

  Neither have I ever cared much for the group of "Scenes de la ViePolitique," ranging from _Une Tenebreuse Affaire_ to _Le Deputed'Arcis_, the last being not entirely Balzac's own. The single volume,"Scenes de la Vie Militaire," consisting merely of _Les Chouans_ and_Une Passion dans le Desert_, is much better, and the "Scenes de la Viede Campagne" reach a high level with _Le Medecin de Campagne_, _Le Curede Village_, and the late, grim, but very noteworthy _Les Paysans_.

  None, however, of these sometimes rather arbitrary groups of Balzac'scontains such thoroughly satisfactory matter as that which he chose tocall "Etudes Philosophiques." It includes only one full-volume novel,but that is the _Peau de Chagrin_ itself.[165] And here are most of theshort stories singled out at first, _La Recherche de l'Absolu_, _JesusChrist en Flandre_, _Le Chef-d'oeuvre Inconnu_, with _MelmothReconcilie_[166] in the same batch. The two volumes entitled _L'EnfantMaudit_ and _Les Marana_ contain all but a dozen remarkable tales. Here,too, is the curious treatise _Sur Catherine de Medicis_, with another,to some people among the most interesting of all, the autobiographic_Louis Lambert_, and also the mystical, and in parts very beautiful,_Seraphita_.

  The "Etudes Analytiques," which complete the original _Comedie_ with thetwo notorious volumes of _Physiologie du Marriage_ and _Petites Miseresde la Vie Conjugale_, are not novels or tales, and so do not concernus. They are not the only instance in literature showing that thesarcasm

  The _God_ you took from a printed book

  extends to other things besides divinity. The old conventional satireson marriage are merely rehashed with some extra garlic. Balzac had nopersonal experience of the subject till just before his death, and hissingular claustral habits of life could not give him much opportunityfor observation.

  [Sidenote: "Balzacity": its constitution.]

  Experience, indeed, and observation (to speak with only apparentparadox), though they played an important, yet played only a subordinatepart at any time in the great Balzacian achievement. Victor Hugo, inwhat was in effect a funeral oration, described that achievement as "unlivre qui est l'Observation et qui est l'Imagination." But no onefamiliar with the Victorian rhetoric will mistake the _clou_, thedominating and decisive word of that sentence. It is the conjunction.Hugo meant to draw attention to the astonishing _union_ of Imaginationwith Observation--two things which, except in the highest poetry, areapt to be rather strangers to each other--and by putting Imaginationlast he meant also doubtless that this was the dominating--themasculine--element in the marriage. In the immense volume of discussionof Balzac which the long lifetime succeeding his death has seen, andwhich thickened and multiplied towards the close of the last century anda little later--owing to the conclusion of the _Edition Definitive_ withits additions and illustrative matter--this point has perhaps been toofrequently lost sight of. The great critics who were his contemporariesand immediate survivors were rather too near. The greatest of the laterbatch, M. Brunetiere, was a little too eager to use Balzac as a stick tobeat the Romantics with for one thing, and to make him out a pioneer ofall succeeding French fiction for another. But, quite early, PhilareteChasles hit the white by calling him a _voyant_ (a word slightly varyingin signification from our "seer"), and recently a critic of less reputethan Brunetiere, but a good one--M. Le Breton--though perhaps sometimesnot quite fair to Balzac, recognises his Romanticism, his _frenesie_,and so the Imagination of which the lunatic and the lover are--and ofwhich the devotee of Romance in verse and prose should be--compact.

  Nevertheless it would be of course highly improper, and in fact absurd,to deny the "observation"--at least in detail of all kinds. Although--aswe have seen and may see again when we come to Naturalism and lookback--M. Brunetiere was quite wrong in thinking that Balzac _introduced_"interiors" to French, and still more wrong in thinking that heintroduced them to European, novel-writing, they undoubtedly make agreat show in his work--are, indeed, one of its chief characteristics.He actually overdoes them sometimes; the "dragging" of _Les Chouans_ isat least partly due to this, and he never got complete mastery of histendency that way. But undoubtedly this tendency was also a source ofpower.

  Yet, while this observation of _things_ is not to be denied, Balzac'sobservation of _persons_ is a matter much more debatable. To listen tosome of the more uncritical--especially among the older and now almosttraditional--estimates of him, an unwary reader who did not correctthese, judging for himself, might think that Balzac was as much of an"observational" realist in character as Fielding, as Scott when itserved his turn, as Miss Austen, or as Thackeray. Longer study andfurther perspective seem recently to have put more people in theposition which only a few held some years ago. The astonishing force,completeness, _relative_ reality of his creations is more and moreadmitted, but it is seen (M. Le Breton, for instance, admits it inalmost the very words) that the reality is often not _positive_. In factthe _Comedie_ may remind some of the old nautical laudation of a shipwhich cannot only sail close to the wind, but even a point or two on theother side of it. If even Frenchmen now confess that Balzac's charactersare very often not _des etres reels_, no Englishman need be ashamed ofhaving always thought so.

  The fact is that this giant in novel-writing did actually succeed indoing what some of his brethren in _Hyperion_ would have liked to do--insetting up a new world for himself and getting out of the existinguniverse. His characte
rs are never _in_human; they never fail to behuman; they are of the same flesh and blood, the same soul and spirit,as ourselves. But they have, as it were, colonised the fresh planet--theBalzacium Sidus--and taken new colour and form from itsidiosyncrasies.[167]

  [Sidenote: Its effect on successors.]

  It is for this reason that one hesitates to endorse the opinions quotedabove as to the filiation of all or most subsequent French fiction uponBalzac. Of course he had a great influence on it; such a genius, in suchcircumstances, could not but have. The "interior" business was largelyfollowed and elaborated; it might be argued--though the contention wouldhave to be strictly limited and freely provisoed--that Naturalism ingeneral--as the "Rougon-Macquart" scheme certainly was inparticular--was a sort of bastard of the _Comedie_. Other points ofrelationship might be urged. But all this would leave the mostcharacteristic Balzacities untouched. In the most obvious andsuperficial quality--pessimistic psychology--the other novelist dealtwith in this chapter--Beyle--is far more of a real origin than Balzacis. If one takes the most brilliant of his successors outside theNaturalist school--Flaubert and Feuillet--very little that is reallyBalzacian will be found in either. At least _Madame Bovary_ and _M. deCamors_--which, I suppose, most people would choose to represent thegreatest genius and the most flexible talent of the Second Empire innovel-writing--seem to me to show hardly anything that is like Balzac.The Goncourts have something of degraded Balzacianism on its lower sidein them, and Zola approaches, at least in his "apocalyptic" period,something like a similar though less offensive degradation of thehigher. But I can hardly conceive anything less like Balzac's work thanMaupassant's.

  [Sidenote: And its own character.]

  For the fact is that the real Balzac lies--to and for me--almostentirely in that _aura_ of other-worldliness of which I have spoken. Itis in the revelation of this other world, so like ours and yet not thesame; in the exploration of its continents; in the frequentation of itsinhabitants; that the pleasure which he has to give consists. How hecame himself to discover it is as undiscoverable as how his in some sortanalogue Dickens, after pottering not unpleasantly with Bozeries,"thought of Mr. Pickwick," and so of the rest of _his_ human (andextra-human) comedy. But the facts, in both cases fortunately, remain.And it may be possible to indicate at least some qualities andcharacteristics of the fashion in which he dealt with this world when he_had_ discovered it. In _Les Chouans_ he had found out not so much it,as the way to it; in the books between that and _La Peau de Chagrin_ hewas over the border, and with _La Peau_ itself he had "crossedJordan,"--it was all conquest and extension--as far as permitted--ofterritory afterwards.

  [Sidenote: The "occult" element.]

  There can, I should suppose, be very little doubt that the fancy for theoccult, which played a great part, as far as bulk goes, in the_Juvenilia_, but produced nothing of value there, began to bear fruit atthis time. The Supernatural (as was remarked of woman to the indignationof Mr. Snodgrass) is a "rum creetur." It is very difficult to deal with;to the last degree unsatisfactory when of bad quality and badly handled;but possessing almost infinite capabilities of exhibiting excellence,and conveying enjoyment. Of course, during the generation beforeBalzac's birth and also that between his birth and 1830, the TerrorNovel--from the _Castle of Otranto_ to Maturin--had circled throughEurope, and "Illuminism" of various kinds had taken particular hold ofFrance just before the Revolution. But Balzac's "Occult," like Balzac'severything, was not the same as anybody else's. Whether you take it in_La Peau de Chagrin_ itself, or in _Seraphita_, or anywhere, itconsists, again, rather in atmosphere than in "figures." A weaker geniuswould have attached to the skin of that terrible wild ass--gloomier, butmore formidable than even the beast in Job[168]--some attendant evilspirit, genie, or "person" of some sort. A bit of shagreen externally,shrinking--with age--perhaps? with weather?--what not?--a life shrinkingin mysterious sympathy--that is what was wanted and what you have,without ekings, or explanations, or other trumpery.

  [Sidenote: Its action and reaction.]

  Nor is it only in the ostensibly "occult" or (as he was pleased to callthem) "philosophic" studies and and stories that you get thisatmosphere. It spreads practically everywhere--the very bankruptcies andthe sordid details of town and country life are overshadowed and in acertain sense _dis_-realised by it. Indeed that verb which, like mostnew words, has been condemned by some precisians, but which was muchwanted, applies to no prose writer quite so universally as to Balzac. Heis a _dis_-realiser, not by style as some are, but in thought--at thevery same time that he gives such impressions of realism. Sometimes, butnot often, he comes quite close to real mundane reality, sometimes, asin the most "philosophical" of the so-called philosophical works, hehardly attempts a show of it. But as a rule when he is at his very best,as in _La Peau de Chagrin_, in _La Recherche de l'Absolu_, in _LeChef-d'oeuvre Inconnu_, he attains a kind of point of unity betweendisrealising and realising--he disrealises the common and renders theuncommon real in a fashion actually carrying out what he can never haveknown--the great Coleridgian definition or description of poetry. Infact, if prose-poetry were not a contradiction in terms, Balzac wouldbe, except in style,[169] the greatest prose-poet of them all.

  [Sidenote: Peculiarity of the conversation.]

  On[170] one remarkable characteristic of the _Comedie_ very little hasusually been said. It has been neglected wholly by most critics, thoughit is of the very first importance. And that is the astonishingly smalluse, _in proportion_, which Balzac makes of that great weapon of thenovelist, dialogue, and the almost smaller effect which it accordinglyhas in producing his results (whatever they are) on his readers. Withsome novelists dialogue is almost all-powerful. Dumas, for instance (asis pointed out elsewhere), does almost everything by it. In his bestbooks especially you may run the eye over dozens, scores, almosthundreds of pages without finding a single one printed "solid." Theauthor seldom makes any reflections at all; and his descriptions, with,of course, some famous exceptions, are little more than longish stagedirections. Nor is this by any means merely due to early practice in thedrama itself; for something like it is to be found in writers who havehad no such practice. In Balzac, after making every allowance for thefact that he often prints his actual conversations without typographicalseparation of the speeches, the case is just the other way. Moreover,and this is still more noteworthy, it is not by what his characters dosay that we remember them. The situation perhaps most of all; thecharacter itself very often; the story sometimes (but of that morepresently)--these are the things for and by which we remember Balzac andthe vast army of his creations; while sometimes it is not even for anyof these things, but for "interiors," "business," and the like. When onethinks of single points in him, it is scarcely ever of such things asthe "He has got his discharge, by----!" of Dickens; as the "Adsum" ofThackeray; as the "Trop lourd!" of Porthos' last agony; as the longerbut hardly less quintessenced malediction of Habakkuk Mucklewrath onClaverhouse. It is of Eugenie Grandet shrinking in automatic repulsionfrom the little bench as she reads her cousin's letter; of Henri deMarsay's cigar (his enjoyment of it, that is to say, for his words arequite commonplace) as he leaves "la Fille aux Yeux d'Or"; of the loverallowing himself to be built up in "La Grande Breteche." Observe thatthere is not the slightest necessity to apportion the excellence impliedin these different kinds of reminiscence; as a matter of fact, each wayof fastening the interest and the appreciation of the reader isindifferently good.[171] But the distinction remains.

  [Sidenote: And of the "story" interest.]

  There is another point on which, though no good critic can miss it, somecritics seem to dislike dwelling; and this is that, though Balzac'sseparate situations, as has just been said, are arresting in the highestdegree, it is often distinctly difficult to read him "for the story."Even M. Brunetiere lets slip an admission that "interest" of theordinary kind is not exactly Balzac's forte; while another admirer ofhis grants freely that his _affabulation_ is weak. Once more, we neednot and must not make too much
of this; but it is important that itshould not be forgotten, and the extreme Balzacian is sometimes apt toforget it. That it comes sometimes from Balzac's mania for rehandlingand reshaping--that he has actually, like the hero of what is to somehis most unforgettable short story, daubed the masterpiece into ablur--is certain. But it probably comes more often, and is much moreinteresting as coming, from want of co-ordination between the observingand the imagining faculties which are (as Hugo meant) the yoked coursersof Balzac's car.

  The fact is that _exceptis excipiendis_, of which _Eugenie Grandet_ isthe chief solid example, it is not by the ordinary means, or in theordinary ways, that Balzac makes any considerable part of his appeal. Heis very much more _der Einzige_ in novel-writing than Jean Paul was innovel-writing or anything else; for a good deal of Richter's uniquenessdepended[172] upon eccentricities of style, etc., from which Balzac isentirely free. And the same may be said, with the proper mutations, ofGeorge Meredith. No one ever made less use--despite his "details" and"interiors"--of what may be called intellectual or artistic costume andproperties than the author of the _Comedie Humaine_. The mostegotistical of men in certain ways, he never thrusts his _ego_ upon you.The most personal in his letters, he is almost as impersonal in most ofhis writings (_Louis Lambert_, etc., being avowedly exceptional) asShakespeare. Now, though the personal interest may be not illegitimateand sometimes great, the impersonal is certainly greater. Thanks toindustrious prying, not always deserving the adjective impertinent, weknow a great deal about Balzac; and it is by no means difficult to applysome of the knowledge to aid the study of his creation. But in readingthe creation itself you never need this knowledge; it never forcesitself on you. The hundreds, and almost thousands, of persons who formthe company of the _Comedie_--their frequently recurring parts adjustedwith extraordinary, though by no means obtrusive or offensive,consistency to the enormous world of detail and scenery and general"surroundings" in which their parts are played--are never interferedwith by the pointing-stick or the prompter. They are _there_; they can'thelp being there, and you have to make the best or the worst of them asyou can. Considering the general complexion of this universe, itsinevitableness and apparent [Greek: autarkeia] may seem, in some moodsand to some persons, a little oppressive; it is always, perhaps, as hasbeen admitted, productive rather of admiration than of pleasure. Faultsof various kinds may be found with it. But it is almost alwayswonderful; it is often great, and it is sometimes of the greatest.[173]

  FOOTNOTES:

  [124] Of course there are exceptions, _Le Rouge et le Noir_ and _La Peaude Chagrin_ being perhaps the chief among long novels; while some ofBalzac's short stories possess the quality in almost the highest degree.

  [125] He tried several pseudonyms, but settled on this. Unfortunately,he sometimes (not always) made it "_De_ Stendhal," without anythingbefore the "De," and more unfortunately still, in the days of hisNapoleonic employment he, if he had not called himself, had allowedhimself to be called "M. _de_ Beyle"--an assumption which thoughdropped, was not forgotten in the days of his later anti-aristocratism.

  [126] Beyle himself recognized the necessity of the reader'scollaboration.

  [127] This does not apply to poets as much as to prose writers: a factfor which reasons could perhaps be given. And it certainly does notapply to Balzac.

  [128] He was now forty-four, and had published not a few volumes, mostlysmall, of other kinds--travel description (which he did uncommonlywell), and miscellaneous writing, and criticism, including the famous_Racine et Shakespeare_, an _avant-coureur_ of Romanticism whichcontained, besides matter on its title-subjects, some sound estimate ofScott as a writer and some very unsound abuse about him as a man. Thislast drew from Byron, who had met Beyle earlier at Milan, a letter ofexpostulation and vindication which did that noble poet infinite credit,but of which Beyle, by no means to _his_ credit, took notice. He wasonly too like Hazlitt in more ways than one: though few books withpractically the same title can be more different than _De l'Amour_ and_Liber Amoris_.

  [129] As for instance, those from Dekker and Massiger; Camoens andErcilla are allowed their native tongues "neat."

  [130] The actual "Chartreuse" of Parma only makes its appearance on thevery last page of the book, when the hero, resigning his arch bishopric,retires to it.

  [131] He is the younger son of a rich and noble family, but his fatherdisowns and his older brother denounces him quite early. It ischaracteristic of Beyle that we hear very little of the father and arepractically never even introduced to the brother.

  [132] These four words somehow make me think of Samuel Newcome's commenton the unfortunate dinner where "Farintosh" did not appear: "Scarcelyanything was drank."

  [133] See note above.

  [134] Both would have declined to meddle with her, I think, but fordifferent reasons.

  [135] Beyle, who had himself no good looks, is particularly lavish ofthem to his heroes.

  [136] Perhaps one of the rare biographical details which, as has beenexplained, may "force the _consigne_" here, is that Beyle in his youth,and almost up to middle age, was acquainted with an old lady who had thevery unenviable reputation of having actually "sat for" Madame deMerteuil.

  [137] This bad bloodedness, or [Greek: kakoetheia], of Beyle's heroes isreally curious. It would have qualified them later to be Temperancefanatics or Trade Union demagogues. The special difference of all threeis an intense dislike of somebody else "having something."

  [138] In that merry and wise book _Clarissa Furiosa_.

  [139] She keeps the anniversary of his execution, and imitatesMarguerite in procuring and treasuring, at the end of the story,Julien's severed head. (It may be well to note that Dumas had not yetwritten _La Reine Margot_.)

  [140] In proper duel, of course; not as he shot his mistress.

  [141] Its great defect is the utter absence of any poetical element.But, as Merimee (than whom there could hardly be, in this case, a criticmore competent or more friendly) said, poetry was, to Beyle, _lettreclose_.

  [142] It seems curiously enough, that Beyle did mean to make the book_gai_. It is a a very odd kind of gaiety!

  [143] This attraction of the _forcat_ is one of the most curiousfeatures in all French Romanticism. It was perhaps partly one of thegeneral results of the Revolutionary insanity earlier, partly a symptomor sequel of Byronism. But the way it raged not only among folks likeEugene Sue, but among men and women of great talent and sometimesgenius--George Sand, Balzac, Dumas, Victor Hugo--the last and greatestcarrying it on for nearly two generations--is a real curiousity ofliterature. (The later and different crime-novel of Gaboriau & Co. willbe dealt with in its place.)

  [144] _V. sup._ vol. i. p. 39.

  [145] A pseudonymous person has "reconstituted" the story under thetitle of _Lucien Leeuwen_ (the hero's name). But some not inconsiderableexperience of reconstitutions of this kind determined me to waste nofurther portion of my waning life on any one of them.

  [146] It may be desirable to glance at Beyle's avowed or obvious"intentions" in most if not all his novels--in the _Chartreuse_ todifferentiate Italian from French character, in _Le Rouge et le Noir_ toembody the Macchiavellian-Napoleonic principle which has been of late sotediously phrased (after the Germans) as "will to" something and thelike. These intentions may interest some: for me, I must confess, theydefinitely get in the way of the interest. For essays, "good": fornovels, "no."

  [147] Vide _Guy Mannering_ as to the "macers."

  [148] _Les Chouans._

  [149] Forty vols. London: 1895-8.

  [150] _Quarterly Review_ for January 1907.

  [151] I believe I may say, without fatuity, that the generalIntroduction and the _Quarterly_ article, above referred to, containmost things that anybody but a special student will need.

  [152] It is, however, important to remember that almost the whole of thefirst of these three decades was taken up with the tentatives, while theconcluding _lustrum_ was comparatively infertile. The _Comedie_ was, inthe main, the crop of fift
een years only.

  [153] It ought always to be, but has not always been, put as a round sumto his credit in this part of the account that he heartily recognisedthe value of Scott as a novelist. A hasty thinker might be surprised atthis; not so the wiser mind.

  [154] This remarkable person deserves at least a note here "for onething that he did"--the novel of _Fragoletta_ (1829), which many shouldknow _of_--though they may not know _it_--from Mr. Swinburne's poem, andsome perhaps from Balzac's own review. It is one of the followings of_La Religieuse_, and is a disappointing book, not from being too immoralnor from being not immoral enough, but because it does not "come off."There is a certain promise, suggestion, "atmosphere," but the actualcharacterisation is vague and obscure, and the story is told with nograsp. This habit of "flashing in the pan" is said to have beencharacteristic of all Latouche's work, which was fairly voluminous andof many different kinds, from journalism to poetry; and it may have beenpartly due to, partly the cause of, a cross-grained disposition. He had,however, a high repute for spoken if not written criticism, had a greatinfluence as a trainer or mentor on George Sand, and perhaps not alittle on Balzac himself. During the later years of his fairly long lifehe lived in retirement and produced nothing.

  [155] One of the friends who have read my proofs takes a moreAlexandrian way with this objection and says "But there _are_." I do notknow that I disagree with him: but as he does not disagree with whatfollows in itself, both answers shall stand.

  [156] Cf. Maupassant's just protest against this, to which we shallcome.

  [157] An actual reduction of Balzac's books to smaller but stillnarrative scale is very seldom possible and would be still more rarelysatisfactory. The best substitute for it is the already glanced at_Repertoire_ of MM. Christophe and Cerfbeer, a curious but verysatisfactory Biographical Dictionary of the Comedy's _personae_.

  [158] "Sans genie je suis flambe," as he wrote early to his sister.

  [159] This is about the best of the batch, and I agree with those whothink that it would not have disfigured the _Comedie_. Indeed theexclusion of these _juvenilia_ from the _Edition Definitive_ was acritical blunder. Even if Balzac did once wish it, the "dead hand" isnot to be too implicitly given way to, and he was so constantly changinghis views that he probably would have altered this also had he lived.

  [160] A certain kind of commentator would probably argue from Mr.Browning's well-known words "_fifty_ volumes long" that he _had_, andanother that he had _not_ read the _Oeuvres de Jeunesse_.

  [161] He would not have liked the name "patriot" because of itscorruption, but he was one.

  [162] Not a few things, some of them very good, came between--thepleasant _Maison du Chat-qui-Pelote_, several of the wonderful shortstories, and the beginning of the _Contes Drolatiques_. But none of themhad the "importance"--in the artistic sense of combined merit andscale--of the _Peau_.

  [163] I mean, of course, as far as books go. We have positive testimonythat there was a live Becky, and I would I had known her!

  [164] Originally and perhaps preferably called _La Rabouilleuse_ fromthe early occupation of its heroine, Flore Brazier, one of Balzac's mostnotable figures.

  [165] It is one of the strangest instances of the limitations of some ofthe best critics that M. Brunetiere declined even to speak of this greatbook.

  [166] The immense influence of Maturin in France, and especially onBalzac, is an old story now, though it was not always so.

  [167] It is possible that some readers may miss a more extended survey,or at least sample, of these characters. But the plea made above as toabstract of the stories is valid here. There is simply not room to dojustice to say, Lucien de Rubempre, who pervades a whole block of novelsand stories, or to others from Rastignac to Corentin.

  [168] It has sometimes occurred to me that perhaps the skin _was_ thatof Job's onager.

  [169] He does try a sort of pseudo-poetical style sometimes; but it isseldom successful, and sometimes mere "fine-writing" of no very finekind. The close of _Peau de Chagrin_ and _Seraphita_ contain about thebest passages.

  [170] The two next paragraphs are, by the kind permission of the Editorand Publisher of the _Quarterly Review_, reprinted, with some slightalterations, from the article above referred to.

  [171] I have known this denied by persons of authority, who would exaltthe gift of conversation even above the pure narrative faculty. I shouldadmit the latter was commoner, but hardly that it was inferior.

  [172] I believe I may speak without rashness thus, for a copy of thesixteen-volume (was it not?) edition was a cherished possession of minefor years, and I even translated a certain amount for my ownamusement--especially _Die unsichtbare Loge_.

  [173] I have said nothing here on a point of considerable interest tomyself--the question whether Balzac can be said ever (or at least often)to have drawn a gentleman or a lady. It would require too much"justification" by analysis of particular characters. And this wouldpass into a more general enquiry whether these two species exist in theBalzacium Sidus itself. Which things open long vistas. (_V. inf._ onCharles de Bernard.)