from life the good that he craved; what of the main body, on whose success the powers of his whole soul were concentrated? Art was life to the man who, his sister tells us, would discuss the news of the "Comédie Humaine" as though it were that of the real world; who would say gravely, "Do you know whom Félix de Vandenesse is marrying? One of the Grandvilles. It is an excellent marriage for him, for the Grandvilles are rich, in spite of what Mlle. de Bellechasse has cost the family "; and who interrupted Jules Sandeau's account of his sister's illness by remarking "Let us now return to reality; let us talk of Eugénie Grandet."

What then of the " Comédie Humaine," Balzac's great life work, over which he killed himself, after leading for over twenty years an existence which would have destroyed the inventive powers of most men at the end of six months? It is certainly the work of a stupendous imagination. Over two thousand personages live, move, and play their parts in it, and Balzac hardly ever makes a mistake. He knows their characters, is acquainted with their families, their genealogies, and the past events in their history. Our amazement grows when we realise that quite as many more stories, thronged with almost superhumanly active personages, existed in embryo in Balzac's brain, and that the plots and characters were so clear and living to him that, though probably not a word had been written, he discusses them in his letters as though the books were on the verge of being published. The powers of his imagination seem inexhaustible, and yet, in spite of the

fact that the" Comédie Humaine " is a stupendous monument as a whole for one man to rear, with a few notable exceptions it seems hardly worthy in its separate parts of the genius who conceived it.

Balzac's conception of his projected undertaking was certainly high. In October, 1834, he writes to Madame Hanska about his collected work, which was not known as the “Comédie Humaine" till 1841, when the title was suggested to him by his friend Auguste de Belloy, who had just returned from Italy, full of enthusiasm for Dante:

"The 'Études de Mours' will represent all social operations, without a situation of life, a physiognomy, a man or woman's character, a way of living, a profession, a division of society, a French province, nor anything to do with childhood, old age, maturity, politics, justice, or war being forgotten."

In the preface to " Père Goriot " he tells us that his intention is scientific, and that he proposes to do for humanity what Buffon has done for zoology. This was a brilliant ideal, but it seems to have been formed with no reference to the ordinary span of life allotted to mankind, and though Balzac counted like his father on great longevity, he did not even attain to what is called a "good old age."

It is pathetic to read that on his death-bed he implored the doctor to promise him six months, six weeks, even six days in which to continue his unfinished work. The fever would help him to compose quickly, he said, and even in six days he would be able to write down hasty plans that his friends could finish, and to glance

rapidly through the fifty volumes he had already written. Time, time was what he craved for with agonising intensity, but he died the next day, leaving those visions of his brain for ever unrecorded.

Yet, even if we allow that the "gigantic monument" he had contemplated must necessarily remain incomplete, and leave out of consideration the many novels which Balzac wrote under the stress of bare necessity, and in which ́his hurry for money often caused him to descend to the level of a writer for the masses, can we fairly maintain that even at his best he is the faithful chronicler and realist he aspired to be?

Here we are confronted by the fact that he undoubtedly possessed to the full extent les défauts de ses qualités, and that even when he wished to be absolutely objective, his powerful personality would often insist on intruding itself. Therefore, though the secondary characters in his books are generally most lifelike, and the descriptions on which he lays much stress, because of his theory of the necessary correspondence between a man and his environmentprove that his gifts of observation and his memory are alike remarkable, the principal figures often possess so large a share of their creator's force and impetus, that they can hardly be looked upon as types of ordinary work-a-day humanity. Thus le Père Goriot, Old Grandet, and Cousine Bette, is each in his own way somewhat of a monomaniac; Balzac has made no allowance for the ordinary weakness of will and the vacillations of humanity; he has endowed his

heroes with his own magnificent strength of purpose, and also with more than a tinge of his want of reason, and of measure in the pursuit of his aims.

His powerful imagination, too, rather interfered with the work of patient investigation necessary for carrying out his intended rôle of impartial chronicler, for though it often enabled him to follow out a chain of deductions from the starting point of a glance, a hint, a whisper, and to exhibit the most extraordinary psychological acumen in his conclusions, it sometimes, on the other hand, ran away with him altogether, and he saw everything enlarged and out of focus, besides being blackened by the peculiarly pessimistic quality of his mind. Therefore, his world is generally a dark one, where colossal figures scheme, work, rend each other, and push virtuous weaklings to the wall, with superhuman persistence and activity.

The "Comédie Humaine" is the production of a giant, whose powers were far beyond those of an ordinary man; it will remain for all time a stupendous monument of human endeavour and genius; but with the exception of "Eugénie Grandet," which was written when the joy of being loved by Madame Hanska had softened Balzac, and invested him with that poetry of love in which most of his conceptions are conspicuously lacking, it contains no single book which, taking truth and moral tone into account as well as workmanship, seems really worthy of the genius which conceived the whole.

Balzac is undoubtedly greater than his work.

Balzac by Himself

A NEW TRANSLATION OF

A LETTER TO MADAME HANSKA

Paris, 19th July, 1837. CARA, you will end by getting so tired of my complainings that when you receive one of my letters you will throw it into the fire without opening it, feeling sure that it is a storehouse of blue devils, and the biggest repository of melancholy there is in the world. If you can fancy my fat, jolly face before you at this moment, you will never connect my troubles with that bulging forehead-not as large or as beautiful as yours-or with those chubby cheeks like those of an idle monk. He who was created for pleasure and ease, for love and luxury, works like a convict.

Yesterday I was talking to Heine about writing plays, and he said to me: "Beware of that: he who is used to Brest will not become accustomed to Toulon. Remain in your own galley."

It is true that I work like a galley-slave, but I think that the distance which separates us is quite trouble enough without making it heavier by the weight of my misery, so I am going to chatter to you gaily about the heartaches, the worries, and the misfortunes which make a triple circle round my soul and my life.

I am the lighter by three works: the third "Dixain" is finished in manuscript, though not