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diff --git a/old/20041110-1968.txt b/old/20041110-1968.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b394d94 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/20041110-1968.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2413 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Human Comedy: Introductions & Appendix +by Honore de Balzac + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + + +Title: The Human Comedy: Introductions & Appendix + +Author: Honore de Balzac + +Release Date: November 10, 2004 [EBook #1968] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUMAN COMEDY *** + + + + +Produced by Dagny, and John Bickers + + + + + + THE HUMAN COMEDY: + INTRODUCTIONS AND APPENDIX + + + + CONTENTS + + Honore de Balzac + Introduction and brief biography by George Saintsbury. + + Appendix + List of titles in French with English translations and grouped + in the various classifications. + + Author's introduction + Balzac's 1842 introduction to The Human Comedy. + + + + + + HONORE DE BALZAC + + + + _"Sans genie, je suis flambe!"_ + +Volumes, almost libraries, have been written about Balzac; and perhaps +of very few writers, putting aside the three or four greatest of all, +is it so difficult to select one or a few short phrases which will in +any way denote them, much more sum them up. Yet the five words quoted +above, which come from an early letter to his sister when as yet he +had not "found his way," characterize him, I think, better than at +least some of the volumes I have read about him, and supply, when they +are properly understood, the most valuable of all keys and companions +for his comprehension. + +"If I have not genius, it is all up with me!" A very matter-of-fact +person may say: "Why! there is nothing wonderful in this. Everybody +knows what genius is wanted to make a name in literature, and most +people think they have it." But this would be a little short-sighted, +and only excusable because of the way in which the word "genius" is +too commonly bandied about. As a matter of fact, there is not so very +much genius in the world; and a great deal of more than fair +performance is attainable and attained by more or less decent +allowances or exhibitions of talent. In prose, more especially, it is +possible to gain a very high place, and to deserve it, without any +genius at all: though it is difficult, if not impossible, to do so in +verse. But what Balzac felt (whether he was conscious in detail of the +feeling or not) when he used these words to his sister Laure, what his +critical readers must feel when they have read only a very little of +his work, what they must feel still more strongly when they have read +that work as a whole--is that for him there is no such door of escape +and no such compromise. He had the choice, by his nature, his aims, +his capacities, of being a genius or nothing. He had no little gifts, +and he was even destitute of some of the separate and indivisible +great ones. In mere writing, mere style, he was not supreme; one +seldom or never derives from anything of his the merely artistic +satisfaction given by perfect prose. His humor, except of the grim and +gigantic kind, was not remarkable; his wit, for a Frenchman, curiously +thin and small. The minor felicities of the literature generally were +denied to him. _Sans genie, il etait flambe_; _flambe_ as he seemed to +be, and very reasonably seemed, to his friends when as yet the genius +had not come to him, and when he was desperately striving to discover +where his genius lay in those wonderous works which "Lord R'Hoone," +and "Horace de Saint Aubin," and others obligingly fathered for him. + +It must be the business of these introductions to give what assistance +they may to discover where it did lie; it is only necessary, before +taking up the task in the regular biographical and critical way of the +introductory cicerone, to make two negative observations. It did not +lie, as some have apparently thought, in the conception, or the +outlining, or the filling up of such a scheme as the _Comedie +Humaine_. In the first place, the work of every great writer, of the +creative kind, including that of Dante himself, is a _comedie +humaine_. All humanity is latent in every human being; and the great +writers are merely those who call most of it out of latency and put it +actually on the stage. And, as students of Balzac know, the scheme and +adjustment of his comedy varied so remarkably as time went on that it +can hardly be said to have, even in its latest form (which would +pretty certainly have been altered again), a distinct and definite +character. Its so-called scenes are even in the mass by no means +exhaustive, and are, as they stand, a very "cross," division of life: +nor are they peopled by anything like an exhaustive selection of +personages. Nor again is Balzac's genius by any means a mere +vindication of the famous definition of that quality as an infinite +capacity of taking pains. That Balzac had that capacity--had it in a +degree probably unequaled even by the dullest plodders on record--is +very well known, is one of the best known things about him. But he +showed it for nearly ten years before the genius came, and though no +doubt it helped him when genius had come, the two things are in his +case, as in most, pretty sufficiently distinct. What the genius itself +was I must do my best to indicate hereafter, always beseeching the +reader to remember that all genius is in its essence and quiddity +indefinable. You can no more get close to it than you can get close to +the rainbow, and your most scientific explanation of it will always +leave as much of the heart of the fact unexplained as the scientific +explanation of the rainbow leaves of that. + + + +Honore de Balzac was born at Tours on the 16th of May, 1799, in the +same year which saw the birth of Heine, and which therefore had the +honor of producing perhaps the most characteristic writers of the +nineteenth century in prose and verse respectively. The family was a +respectable one, though its right to the particle which Balzac always +carefully assumed, subscribing himself "_de_ Balzac," was contested. +And there appears to be no proof of their connection with Jean Guez de +Balzac, the founder, as some will have him, of modern French prose, +and the contemporary and fellow-reformer of Malherbe. (Indeed, as the +novelist pointed out with sufficient pertinence, his earlier namesake +had no hereditary right to the name at all, and merely took it from +some property.) Balzac's father, who, as the _zac_ pretty surely +indicates, was a southerner and a native of Languedoc, was fifty-three +years old at the birth of his son, whose Christian name was selected +on the ordinary principle of accepting that of the saint on whose day +he was born. Balzac the elder had been a barrister before the +Revolution, but under it he obtained a post in the commissariat, and +rose to be head of that department for a military division. His wife, +who was much younger than himself and who survived her son, is said to +have possessed both beauty and fortune, and was evidently endowed with +the business faculties so common among Frenchwomen. When Honore was +born, the family had not long been established at Tours, where Balzac +the elder (besides his duties) had a house and some land; and this +town continued to be their headquarters till the novelist, who was the +eldest of the family, was about sixteen. He had two sisters (of whom +the elder, Laure, afterwards Madame Surville, was his first confidante +and his only authoritative biographer) and a younger brother, who +seems to have been, if not a scapegrace, rather a burden to his +friends, and who later went abroad. + +The eldest boy was, in spite of Rousseau, put out to nurse, and at +seven years old was sent to the Oratorian grammar-school at Vendome, +where he stayed another seven years, going through, according to his +own account, the future experiences and performances of Louis Lambert, +but making no reputation for himself in the ordinary school course. +If, however, he would not work in his teacher's way, he overworked +himself in his own by devouring books; and was sent home at fourteen +in such a state of health that his grandmother (who after the French +fashion, was living with her daughter and son-in-law), ejaculated: +_"Voila donc comme le college nous renvoie les jolis enfants que nous +lui envoyons!"_ It would seem indeed that, after making all due +allowance for grandmotherly and sisterly partiality, Balzac was +actually a very good-looking boy and young man, though the portraits +of him in later life may not satisfy the more romantic expectations of +his admirers. He must have had at all times eyes full of character, +perhaps the only feature that never fails in men of intellectual +eminence; but he certainly does not seem to have been in his manhood +either exactly handsome or exactly "distinguished-looking." But the +portraits of the middle of the century are, as a rule, rather wanting +in this characteristic when compared with those of its first and last +periods; and I cannot think of many that quite come up to one's +expectations. + +For a short time he was left pretty much to himself, and recovered +rapidly. But late in 1814 a change of official duties removed the +Balzacs to Paris, and when they had established themselves in the +famous old _bourgeois_ quarter of the Marais, Honore was sent to +divers private tutors or private schools till he had "finished his +classes" in 1816 at the age of seventeen and a half. Then he attended +lectures at the Sorbonne where Villemain, Guizot, and Cousin were +lecturing, and heard them, as his sister tells us, enthusiastically, +though there are probably no three writers of any considerable repute +in the history of French literature who stand further apart from +Balzac. For all three made and kept their fame by spirited and +agreeable generalizations and expatiations, as different as possible +from the savage labor of observation on the one hand and the gigantic +developments of imagination on the other, which were to compose +Balzac's appeal. His father destined him for the law; and for three +years more he dutifully attended the offices of an attorney and a +notary, besides going through the necessary lectures and examinations. +All these trials he seems to have passed, if not brilliantly, yet +sufficiently. + +And then came the inevitable crisis, which was of an unusually severe +nature. A notary, who was a friend of the elder Balzac's and owed him +some gratitude offered not merely to take Honore into his office, but +to allow him to succeed to his business, which was a very good one, in +a few years on very favorable terms. Most fathers, and nearly all +French fathers, would have jumped at this; and it so happened that +about the same time M. de Balzac was undergoing that unpleasant +process of compulsory retirement which his son has described in one of +the best passages of the _Oeuvres de Jeunesse_, the opening scene of +_Argow le Pirate_. It does not appear that Honore had revolted during +his probation--indeed he is said, and we can easily believe it from +his books, to have acquired a very solid knowledge of law, especially +in bankruptcy matters, of which he was himself to have a very close +shave in future. A solicitor, indeed, told Laure de Balzac that he +found _Cesar Birotteau_ a kind of _Balzac on Bankruptcy_; but this may +have been only the solicitor's fun. + +It was no part of Honore's intentions to use this knowledge--however +content he had been to acquire it--in the least interesting, if nearly +the most profitable, of the branches of the legal profession; and he +protested eloquently, and not unsuccessfully, that he would be a man +of letters and nothing else. Not unsuccessfully; but at the same time +with distinctly qualified success. He was not turned out of doors; nor +were the supplies, as in Quinet's case only a few months later, +absolutely withheld even for a short time. But his mother (who seems +to have been less placable than her husband) thought that cutting them +down to the lowest point might have some effect. So, as the family at +this time (April 1819) left Paris for a house some twenty miles out of +it, she established her eldest son in a garret furnished in the most +Spartan fashion, with a starvation allowance and an old woman to look +after him. He did not literally stay in this garret for the ten years +of his astonishing and unparalleled probation; but without too much +metaphor it may be said to have been his Wilderness, and his +Wanderings in it to have lasted for that very considerable time. + +We know, in detail, very little of him during the period. For the +first years, between 1819 and 1822, we have a good number of letters +to Laure; between 1822 and 1829, when he first made his mark, very +few. He began, of course, with verse, for which he never had the +slightest vocation, and, almost equally of course, with a tragedy. But +by degrees and apparently pretty soon, he slipped into what was his +vocation, and like some, though not very many, great writers, at first +did little better in it than if it had not been his vocation at all. +The singular tentatives which, after being allowed for a time a sort +of outhouse in the structure of the _Comedie Humaine_, were excluded +from the octavo _Edition Definitive_ five-and-twenty years ago, have +never been the object of that exhaustive bibliographical and critical +attention which has been bestowed on those which follow them. They +were not absolutely unproductive--we hear of sixty, eighty, a hundred +pounds being paid for them, though whether this was the amount of +Balzac's always sanguine expectations, or hard cash actually handed +over, we cannot say. They were very numerous, though the reprints +spoken of above never extended to more than ten. Even these have never +been widely read. The only person I ever knew till I began this +present task who had read them through was the friend whom all his +friends are now lamenting and are not likely soon to cease to lament, +Mr. Louis Stevenson; and when I once asked him whether, on his honor +and conscience, he could recommend me to brace myself to the same +effort, he said that on his honor and conscience he must most +earnestly dissuade me. I gather, though I am not sure, that Mr. +Wedmore, the latest writer in English on Balzac at any length, had not +read them through when he wrote. + +Now I have, and a most curious study they are. Indeed I am not sorry, +as Mr. Wedmore thinks one would be. They are curiously, interestingly, +almost enthrallingly bad. Couched for the most part in a kind of +Radcliffian or Monk-Lewisian vein--perhaps studied more directly from +Maturin (of whom Balzac was a great admirer) than from either--they +often begin with and sometimes contain at intervals passages not +unlike the Balzac that we know. The attractive title of _Jane la Pale_ +(it was originally called, with a still more Early Romantic avidity +for _baroque_ titles, _Wann-Chlore_) has caused it, I believe, to be +more commonly read than any other. It deals with a disguised duke, a +villainous Italian, bigamy, a surprising offer of the angelic first +wife to submit to a sort of double arrangement, the death of the +second wife and first love, and a great many other things. _Argow le +Pirate_ opens quite decently and in order with that story of the +_employe_ which Balzac was to rehandle so often, but drops suddenly +into brigands stopping diligences, the marriage of the heroine Annette +with a retired pirate marquis of vast wealth, the trial of the latter +for murdering another marquis with a poisoned fish-bone scarf-pin, his +execution, the sanguinary reprisals by his redoubtable lieutenant, and +a finale of blunderbusses, fire, devoted peasant girl with _retrousse_ +nose, and almost every possible _tremblement_. + +In strictness mention of this should have been preceded by mention of +_Le Vicaire des Ardennes_, which is a sort of first part of _Argow le +Pirate_, and not only gives an account of his crimes, early history, +and manners (which seem to have been a little robustious for such a +mild-mannered man as Annette's husband), but tells a thrilling tale of +the loves of the _vicaire_ himself and a young woman, which loves are +crossed, first by the belief that they are brother and sister, and +secondly by the _vicaire_ having taken orders under this delusion. _La +Derniere Fee_ is the queerest possible cross between an actual fairy +story _a la_ Nordier and a history of the fantastic and inconstant +loves of a great English lady, the Duchess of "Sommerset" (a piece of +actual _scandalum magnatum_ nearly as bad as Balzac's cool use in his +acknowledged work of the title "Lord Dudley"). This book begins so +well that one expects it to go on better; but the inevitable defects +in craftsmanship show themselves before long. _Le Centenaire_ connects +itself with Balzac's almost lifelong hankering after the _recherche de +l'absolu_ in one form or another, for the hero is a wicked old person +who every now and then refreshes his hold on life by immolating a +virgin under a copper-bell. It is one of the most extravagant and +"Monk-Lewisy" of the whole. _L'Excommunie_, _L'Israelite_, and +_L'Heritiere de Birague_ are mediaeval or fifteenth century tales of +the most luxuriant kind, _L'Excommunie_ being the best, _L'Israelite_ +the most preposterous, and _L'Heritiere de Birague_ the dullest. But +it is not nearly so dull as _Dom Gigadus_ and _Jean Louis_, the former +of which deals with the end of the seventeenth century and the latter +with the end of the eighteenth. These are both as nearly unreadable as +anything can be. One interesting thing, however, should be noted in +much of this early work: the affectionate clinging of the author to +the scenery of Touraine, which sometimes inspires him with his least +bad passages. + +It is generally agreed that these singular _Oeuvres de Jeunesse_ were +of service to Balzac as exercise, and no doubt they were so; but I +think something may be said on the other side. They must have done a +little, if not much, to lead him into and confirm him in those defects +of style and form which distinguish him so remarkably from most +writers of his rank. It very seldom happens when a very young man +writes very much, be it book-writing or journalism, without censure +and without "editing," that he does not at the same time get into +loose and slipshod habits. And I think we may set down to this +peculiar form of apprenticeship of Balzac's not merely his failure +ever to attain, except in passages and patches, a thoroughly great +style, but also that extraordinary method of composition which in +after days cost him and his publishers so much money. + +However, if these ten years of probation taught him his trade, they +taught him also a most unfortunate avocation or by-trade, which he +never ceased to practise, or to try to practise, which never did him +the least good, and which not unfrequently lost him much of the not +too abundant gains which he earned with such enormous labor. This was +the "game of speculation." His sister puts the tempter's part on an +unknown "neighbor," who advised him to try to procure independence by +_une bonne speculation_. Those who have read Balzac's books and his +letters will hardly think that he required much tempting. He began by +trying to publish--an attempt which has never yet succeeded with a +single man of letters, so far as I can remember. His scheme was not a +bad one, indeed it was one which has brought much money to other +pockets since, being neither more nor less than the issuing of cheap +one-volume editions of French classics. But he had hardly any capital; +he was naturally quite ignorant of his trade, and as naturally the +established publishers and booksellers boycotted him as an intruder. +So his _Moliere_ and his _La Fontaine_ are said to have been sold as +waste paper, though if any copies escaped they would probably fetch a +very comfortable price now. Then, such capital as he had having been +borrowed, the lender, either out of good nature or avarice, determined +to throw the helve after the hatchet. He partly advanced himself and +partly induced Balzac's parents to advance more, in order to start the +young man as a printer, to which business Honore himself added that of +typefounder. The story was just the same: knowledge and capital were +again wanting, and though actual bankruptcy was avoided, Balzac got +out of the matter at the cost not merely of giving the two businesses +to a friend (in whose hands they proved profitable), but of a margin +of debt from which he may be said never to have fully cleared himself. + +He had more than twenty years to live, but he never cured himself of +this hankering after _une bonne speculation_. Sometimes it was +ordinary stock-exchange gambling; but his special weakness was, to do +him justice, for schemes that had something more grandiose in them. +Thus, to finish here with the subject, though the chapter of it never +actually finished till his death, he made years afterwards, when he +was a successful and a desperately busy author, a long, troublesome, +and costly journey to Sardinia to carry out a plan of resmelting the +slag from Roman and other mines there. Thus in his very latest days, +when he was living at Vierzschovnia with the Hanska and Mniszech +household, he conceived the magnificently absurd notion of cutting +down twenty thousand acres of oak wood in the Ukraine, and sending it +_by railway_ right across Europe to be sold in France. And he was +rather reluctantly convinced that by the time a single log reached its +market the freight would have eaten up the value of the whole +plantation. + +It was perhaps not entirely chance that the collapse of the printing +scheme, which took place in 1827, the ninth year of the Wanderings in +the Wilderness, coincided with or immediately preceded the conception +of the book which was to give Balzac passage into the Promised Land. +This was _Les Chouans_, called at its first issue, which differed +considerably from the present form, _Le Dernier Chouan ou la Bretagne +en 1800_ (later _1799_). It was published in 1829 without any of the +previous anagrammatic pseudonyms; and whatever were the reasons which +had induced him to make his bow in person to the public, they were +well justified, for the book was a distinct success, if not a great +one. It occupies a kind of middle position between the melodramatic +romance of his nonage and the strictly analytic romance-novel of his +later time; and, though dealing with war and love chiefly, inclines in +conception distinctly to the latter. Corentin, Hulot, and other +personages of the actual Comedy (then by no means planned, or at least +avowed) appear; and though the influence of Scott is in a way +paramount* on the surface, the underwork is quite different, and the +whole scheme of the loves of Montauran and Mademoiselle de Verneuil is +pure Balzac. + +* Balzac was throughout his life a fervent admirer of Sir Walter, + and I think Mr. Wedmore, in his passage on the subject, distinctly + undervalues both the character and the duration of this esteem. + Balzac was far too acute to commit the common mistake of thinking + Scott superficial--men who know mankind are not often blind to + each other's knowledge. And while Mr. Wedmore seems not to know + any testimony later than Balzac's _thirty-eighth_ year, it is in + his _forty-sixth_, when all his own best work was done, except the + _Parents Pauvres_, that he contrasts Dumas with Scott saying that + _on relit Walter Scott_, and he does not think any one will + re-read Dumas. This may be unjust to the one writer, but it is + conclusive as to any sense of "wasted time" (his own phrase) + having ever existed in Balzac's mind about the other. + +It would seem as if nothing but this sun of popular approval had been +wanting to make Balzac's genius burst out in full bloom. Although we +have a fair number of letters for the ensuing years, it is not very +easy to make out the exact sequence of production of the marvelous +harvest which his genius gave. It is sufficient to say that in the +three years following 1829 there were actually published the +_Physiologie du Mariage_, the charming story of _La Maison du +Chat-que-Pelote_, the _Peau de Chagrin_, the most original and splendid, +if not the most finished and refined, of all Balzac's books, most of the +short _Contes Philosophiques_, of which some are among their author's +greatest triumphs, many other stories (chiefly included in the _Scenes +de la Vie Privee_) and the beginning of the _Contes Drolatiques_.* + +* No regular attempt will after this be made to indicate the date of + production of successive works, unless they connect themselves + very distinctly with incidents in the life or with general + critical observations. At the end of this introduction will be + found a full table of the _Comedie Humaine_ and the other works. + It may perhaps be worth while to add here, that while the labors + of M. de Lovenjoul (to whom every writer on Balzac must + acknowledge the deepest obligation) have cleared this matter up + almost to the verge of possibility as regards the published works, + there is little light to be thrown on the constant references in + the letters to books which never appeared. Sometimes they are + known, and they may often be suspected, to have been absorbed into + or incorporated with others; the rest must have been lost or + destroyed, or, which is not quite impossible, have existed chiefly + in the form of project. Nearly a hundred titles of such things are + preserved. + +But without a careful examination of his miscellaneous work, which is +very abundant and includes journalism as well as books, it is almost +as impossible to come to a just appreciation of Balzac as it is +without reading the early works and letters. This miscellaneous work +is all the more important because a great deal of it represents the +artist at quite advanced stages of his career, and because all its +examples, the earlier as well as the later, give us abundant insight +on him as he was "making himself." The comparison with the early works +of Thackeray (in _Punch_, _Fraser_, and elsewhere) is so striking that +it can escape no one who knows the two. Every now and then Balzac +transferred bodily, or with slight alterations, passages from these +experiments to his finished canvases. It appears that he had a scheme +for codifying his "Physiologies" (of which the notorious one above +mentioned is only a catchpenny exemplar and very far from the best) +into a seriously organized work. Chance was kind or intention was wise +in not allowing him to do so; but the value of the things for the +critical reader is not less. Here are tales--extensions of the scheme +and manner of the _Oeuvres de Jeunesse_, or attempts at the +_goguenard_ story of 1830--a thing for which Balzac's hand was hardly +light enough. Here are interesting evidences of striving to be +cosmopolitan and polyglot--the most interesting of all of which, I +think, is the mention of certain British products as "mufflings." +"Muffling" used to be a domestic joke for "muffin;" but whether some +wicked Briton deluded Balzac into the idea that it was the proper form +or not it is impossible to say. Here is a _Traite de la Vie Elegante_, +inestimable for certain critical purposes. So early as 1825 we find a +_Code des Gens Honnetes_, which exhibits at once the author's legal +studies and his constant attraction for the shady side of business, +and which contains a scheme for defrauding by means of lead pencils, +actually carried out (if we may believe his exulting note) by some +literary swindlers with unhappy results. A year later he wrote a +_Dictionnaire des Enseignes de Paris_, which we are glad enough to +have from the author of the _Chat-que-Pelote_; but the persistence +with which this kind of miscellaneous writing occupied him could not +be better exemplified than by the fact that, of two important works +which closely follow this in the collected edition, the _Physiologie +de l'Employe_ dates from 1841 and the _Monographie de la Presse +Parisienne_ from 1843. + +It is well known that from the time almost of his success as a +novelist he was given, like too many successful novelists (_not_ like +Scott), to rather undignified and foolish attacks on critics. The +explanation may or may not be found in the fact that we have abundant +critical work of his, and that it is nearly all bad. Now and then we +have an acute remark in his own special sphere; but as a rule he +cannot be complimented on these performances, and when he was half-way +through his career this critical tendency of his culminated in the +unlucky _Revue Parisienne_, which he wrote almost entirely himself, +with slight assistance from his friends, MM. de Belloy and de +Grammont. It covers a wide range, but the literary part of it is +considerable, and this part contains that memorable and disastrous +attack on Sainte-Beuve, for which the critic afterwards took a +magnanimous revenge in his obituary _causerie_. Although the thing is +not quite unexampled it is not easily to be surpassed in the blind +fury of its abuse. Sainte-Beuve was by no means invulnerable, and an +anti-critic who kept his head might have found, as M. de Pontmartin +and others did find, the joints in his armor. But when, _a propos_ of +the _Port Royal_ more especially, and of the other works in general, +Balzac informs us that Sainte-Beuve's great characteristic as a writer +is _l'ennui, l'ennui boueux jusqu'a mi-jambe_, that his style is +intolerable, that his historical handling is like that of Gibbon, +Hume, and other dull people; when he jeers at him for exhuming "La +mere Angelique," and scolds him for presuming to obscure the glory of +the _Roi Soleil_, the thing is partly ludicrous, partly melancholy. +One remembers that agreeable Bohemian, who at a symposium once +interrupted his host by crying, "Man o' the hoose, gie us less o' yer +clack and mair o' yer Jairman wine!" Only, in human respect and other, +we phrase it: "Oh, dear M. de Balzac! give us more _Eugenie Grandets_, +more _Pere Goriots_, more _Peaux de Chagrin_, and don't talk about +what you do not understand!" + +Balzac was a great politician also, and here, though he may not have +been very much more successful, he talked with more knowledge and +competence. He must have given himself immense trouble in reading the +papers, foreign as well as French; he had really mastered a good deal +of the political religion of a French publicist. It is curious to +read, sixty years after date, his grave assertion that "_La France a +la conquete de Madagascar a faire_," and with certain very pardonable +defects (such as his Anglophobia), his politics may be pronounced not +unintelligent and not ungenerous, though somewhat inconsistent and not +very distinctly traceable to any coherent theory. As for the +Anglophobia, the Englishman who thinks the less of him for that must +have very poor and unhappy brains. A Frenchman who does not more or +less hate and fear England, an Englishman who does not regard France +with a more or less good-humored impatience, is usually "either a god +or a beast," as Aristotle saith. Balzac began with an odd but not +unintelligible compound, something like Hugo's, of Napoleonism and +Royalism. In 1824, when he was still in the shades of anonymity, he +wrote and published two by no means despicable pamphlets in favor of +Primogeniture and the Jesuits, the latter of which was reprinted in +1880 at the last _Jesuitenhetze_ in France. His _Lettres sur Paris_ in +1830-31, and his _La France et l'Etranger_ in 1836, are two +considerable series of letters from "Our Own Correspondent," handling +the affairs of the world with boldness and industry if not invariably +with wisdom. They rather suggest (as does the later _Revue Parisienne_ +still more) the political writing of the age of Anne in England, and +perhaps a little later, when "the wits" handled politics and society, +literature and things in general with unquestioned competence and an +easy universality. + +The rest of his work which will not appear in this edition may be +conveniently despatched here. The _Physiologie du Mariage_ and the +_Scenes de la Vie Conjugale_ suffer not merely from the most obvious +of their faults but from defect of knowledge. It may or may not be +that marriage, in the hackneyed phrase, is a net or other receptacle +where all the outsiders would be in, and all the insiders out. But it +is quite clear that Coelebs cannot talk of it with much authority. His +state may or may not be the more gracious: his judgment cannot but +lack experience. The "Theatre," which brought the author little if any +profit, great annoyance, and a vast amount of trouble, has been +generally condemned by criticism. But the _Contes Drolatiques_ are not +so to be given up. The famous and splendid _Succube_ is only the best +of them, and though all are more or less tarred with the brush which +tars so much of French literature, though the attempt to write in an +archaic style is at best a very successful _tour de force_, and +represents an expenditure of brain power by no means justifiable on +the part of a man who could have made so much better use of it, they +are never to be spoken of disrespectfully. Those who sneer at their +"Wardour Street" Old French are not usually the best qualified to do +so; and it is not to be forgotten that Balzac was a real countryman of +Rabelais and a legitimate inheritor of _Gauloiserie_. Unluckily no man +can "throw back" in this way, except now and then as a mere pastime. +And it is fair to recollect that as a matter of fact Balzac, after a +year or two, did not waste much more time on these things, and that +the intended ten _dizains_ never, as a matter of fact, went beyond +three. + +Besides this work in books, pamphlets, etc., Balzac, as has been said, +did a certain amount of journalism, especially in the _Caricature_, +his performances including, I regret to say, more than one puff of his +own work; and in this, as well as by the success of the _Chouans_, he +became known about 1830 to a much wider circle, both of literary and +of private acquaintance. It cannot indeed be said that he ever mixed +much in society; it was impossible that he should do so, considering +the vast amount of work he did and the manner in which he did it. This +subject, like that of his speculations, may be better finished off in +a single passage than dealt with by scattered indications here and +there. He was not one of those men who can do work by fits and starts +in the intervals of business or of amusement; nor was he one who, like +Scott, could work very rapidly. It is true that he often achieved +immense quantities of work (subject to a caution to be given +presently) in a very few days, but then his working day was of the +most peculiar character. He could not bear disturbance; he wrote best +at night, and he could not work at all after heavy meals. His favorite +plan (varied sometimes in detail) was therefore to dine lightly about +five or six, then to go to bed and sleep till eleven, twelve, or one, +and then to get up, and with the help only of coffee (which he drank +very strong and in enormous quantities) to work for indefinite +stretches of time into the morning or afternoon of the next day. He +speaks of a sixteen hours' day as a not uncommon shift or spell of +work, and almost a regular one with him; and on one occasion he avers +that in the course of forty-eight hours he took but three of the rest, +working for twenty-two hours and a half continuously on each side +thereof. In such spells, supposing reasonable facility of composition +and mechanical power in the hand to keep going all the time, an +enormous amount can of course be accomplished. A thousand words an +hour is anything but an extraordinary rate of writing, and fifteen +hundred by no means unheard of with persons who do not write rubbish. + +The references to this subject in Balzac's letters are very numerous; +but it is not easy to extract very definite information from them. It +would be not only impolite but incorrect to charge him with +unveracity. But the very heat of imagination which enabled him to +produce his work created a sort of mirage, through which he seems +always to have regarded it; and in writing to publishers, editors, +creditors, and even his own family, it was too obviously his interest +to make the most of his labor, his projects, and his performance. Even +his contemporary, though elder, Southey, the hardest-working and the +most scrupulously honest man of letters in England who could pretend +to genius, seems constantly to have exaggerated the idea of what he +could perform, if not of what he had performed in a given time. The +most definite statement of Balzac's that I remember is one which +claims the second number of _Sur Catherine de Medicis_, "La Confidence +des Ruggieri," as the production of a single night, and not one of the +most extravagant of his nights. Now, "La Confidence des Ruggieri" +fills, in the small edition, eighty pages of nearer four hundred than +three hundred words each, or some thirty thousand words in all. Nobody +in the longest of nights could manage that, except by dictating it to +shorthand clerks. But in the very context of this assertion Balzac +assigns a much longer period to the correction than to the +composition, and this brings us to one of the most curious and one of +the most famous points of his literary history. + +Some doubts have, I believe, been thrown on the most minute account of +his ways of composition which we have, that of the publisher Werdet. +But there is too great a consensus of evidence as to his general +system to make the received description of it doubtful. According to +this, the first draft of Balzac's work never presented it in anything +like fulness, and sometimes it did not amount to a quarter of the bulk +finally published. This being returned to him from the printer in +"slip" on sheets with very large margins, he would set to work on the +correction; that is to say, on the practical rewriting of the thing, +with excisions, alterations, and above all, additions. A "revise" +being executed, he would attack this revise in the same manner, and +not unfrequently more than once, so that the expenses of mere +composition and correction of the press were enormously heavy (so +heavy as to eat into not merely his publisher's but his own profits), +and that the last state of the book, when published, was something +utterly different from its first state in manuscript. And it will be +obvious that if anything like this was usual with him, it is quite +impossible to judge his actual rapidity of composition by the extent +of the published result. + +However this may be (and it is at least certain that in the years +above referred to he must have worked his very hardest, even if some +of the work then published had been more or less excogitated and begun +during the Wilderness period), he certainly so far left his eremitical +habits as to become acquainted with most of the great men of letters +of the early thirties, and also with certain ladies of more or less +high rank, who were to supply, if not exactly the full models, the +texts and starting-points for some of the most interesting figures of +the _Comedie_. He knew Victor Hugo, but certainly not at this time +intimately; for as late as 1839 the letter in which he writes to Hugo +to come and breakfast with him at Les Jardies (with interesting and +minute directions how to find that frail abode of genius) is couched +in anything but the tone of a familiar friendship. The letters to +Beyle of about the same date are also incompatible with intimate +knowledge. Nodier (after some contrary expressions) he seems to have +regarded as most good people did regard that true man of letters and +charming tale-teller; while among the younger generation Theophile +Gautier and Charles de Bernard, as well as Goslan and others, were his +real and constant friends. But he does not figure frequently or +eminently in any of the genuine gossip of the time as a haunter of +literary circles, and it is very nearly certain that the assiduity +with which some of his heroes attend _salons_ and clubs had no +counterpart in his own life. In the first place he was too busy; in +the second he would not have been at home there. Like the young +gentleman in _Punch_, who "did not read books but wrote them," though +in no satiric sense, he felt it his business not to frequent society +but to create it. + +He was, however, aided in the task of creation by the ladies already +spoken of, who were fairly numerous and of divers degrees. The most +constant, after his sister Laure, was that sister's schoolfellow, +Madame Zulma Carraud, the wife of a military official at Angouleme and +the possessor of a small country estate at Frapesle, near Tours. At +both of these places Balzac, till he was a very great man, was a +constant visitor, and with Madame Carraud he kept up for years a +correspondence which has been held to be merely friendly, and which +was certainly in the vulgar sense innocent, but which seems to me to +be tinged with something of that feeling, midway between love and +friendship, which appears in Scott's letters to Lady Abercorn, and +which is probably not so rare as some think. Madame de Berny, another +family friend of higher rank, was the prototype of most of his +"angelic" characters, but she died in 1836. He knew the Duchesse +d'Abrantes, otherwise Madame Junot, and Madame de Girardin, otherwise +Delphine Gay; but neither seems to have exercised much influence over +him. It was different with another and more authentic duchess, Madame +de Castries, after whom he dangled for a considerable time, who +certainly first encouraged him and probably then snubbed him, and who +is thought to have been the model of his wickeder great ladies. And it +was comparatively early in the thirties that he met the woman whom, +after nearly twenty years, he was at last to marry, getting his death +in so doing, the Polish Madame Hanska. These, with some relations of +the last named, especially her daughter, and with a certain "Louise" +--an _Inconnue_ who never ceased to be so--were Balzac's chief +correspondents of the other sex, and, as far as is known, his chief +friends in it. + +About his life, without extravagant "pudding" of guesswork or of mere +quotation and abstract of his letters, it would be not so much +difficult as impossible to say much; and accordingly it is a matter of +fact that most lives of Balzac, including all good ones, are rather +critical than narrative. From his real _debut_ with _Le Dernier +Chouan_ to his departure for Poland on the long visit, or brace of +visits, from which he returned finally to die, this life consisted +solely of work. One of his earliest utterances, "_Il faut piocher +ferme_," was his motto to the very last, varied only by a certain +amount of traveling. Balzac was always a considerable traveler; indeed +if he had not been so his constitution would probably have broken down +long before it actually did; and the expense of these voyagings +(though by his own account he generally conducted his affairs with the +most rigid economy), together with the interruption to his work which +they occasioned, entered no doubt for something into his money +difficulties. He would go to Baden or Vienna for a day's sight of +Madame Hanska; his Sardinian visit has been already noted; and as a +specimen of others it may be mentioned that he once journeyed from +Paris to Besancon, then from Besancon right across France to +Angouleme, and then back to Paris on some business of selecting paper +for one of the editions of his books, which his publishers would +probably have done much better and at much less expense. + +Still his actual receipts were surprisingly small, partly, it may be, +owing to his expensive habits of composition, but far more, according +to his own account, because of the Belgian piracies, from which all +popular French authors suffered till the government of Napoleon the +Third managed to put a stop to them. He also lived in such a thick +atmosphere of bills and advances and cross-claims on and by his +publishers, that even if there were more documents than there are it +would be exceedingly difficult to get at facts which are, after all, +not very important. He never seems to have been paid much more than +500 pounds for the newspaper publication (the most valuable by far +because the pirates could not interfere with its profits) of any one +of his novels. And to expensive fashions of composition and +complicated accounts, a steady back-drag of debt and the rest, must be +added the very delightful, and to the novelist not useless, but very +expensive mania for the collector. Balzac had a genuine taste for, and +thought himself a genuine connoisseur in, pictures, sculpture, and +objects of art of all kinds, old and new; and though prices in his day +were not what they are in these, a great deal of money must have run +through his hands in this way. He calculated the value of the contents +of the house, which in his last days he furnished with such loving +care for his wife, and which turned out to be a chamber rather of +death than of marriage, at some 16,000 pounds. But part of this was +Madame Hanska's own purchasing, and there were offsets of indebtedness +against it almost to the last. In short, though during the last twenty +years of his life such actual "want of pence" as vexed him was not +due, as it had been earlier, to the fact that the pence refused to +come in, but only to imprudent management of them, it certainly cannot +be said that Honore de Balzac, the most desperately hard worker in all +literature for such time as was allotted him, and perhaps the man of +greatest genius who was ever a desperately hard worker, falsified that +most uncomfortable but truest of proverbs--"Hard work never made +money." + +If, however, he was but scantily rewarded with the money for which he +had a craving (not absolutely, I think, devoid of a touch of genuine +avarice, but consisting chiefly of the artist's desire for pleasant +and beautiful things, and partly presenting a variety or phase of the +grandiose imagination, which was his ruling characteristic), Balzac +had plenty of the fame, for which he cared quite as much as he cared +for money. Perhaps no writer except Voltaire and Goethe earlier made +such a really European reputation; and his books were of a kind to be +more widely read by the general public than either Goethe's or +Voltaire's. In England (Balzac liked the literature but not the +country, and never visited England, though I believe he planned a +visit) this popularity was, for obvious reasons, rather less than +elsewhere. The respectful vogue which French literature had had with +the English in the eighteenth century had ceased, owing partly to the +national enmity revived and fostered by the great war, and partly to +the growth of a fresh and magnificent literature at home during the +first thirty years of the nineteenth in England. But Balzac could not +fail to be read almost at once by the lettered; and he was translated +pretty early, though not perhaps to any great extent. It was in +England, moreover, that by far his greatest follower appeared, and +appeared very shortly. For it would be absurd in the most bigoted +admirer of Thackeray to deny that the author of _Vanity Fair_, who was +in Paris and narrowly watching French literature and French life at +the very time of Balzac's most exuberant flourishing and education, +owed something to the author of _Le Pere Goriot_. There was no copying +or imitation; the lessons taught by Balzac were too much blended with +those of native masters, such as Fielding, and too much informed and +transformed by individual genius. Some may think--it is a point at +issue not merely between Frenchmen and Englishmen, but between good +judges of both nations on each side--that in absolute veracity and +likeness to life, in limiting the operation of the inner consciousness +on the outward observation to strictly artistic scale, Thackeray +excelled Balzac as far as he fell short of him in the powers of the +seer and in the gigantic imagination of the prophet. But the relations +of pupil and master in at least some degree are not, I think, +deniable. + +So things went on in light and in shade, in homekeeping and in travel, +in debts and in earnings, but always in work of some kind or another, +for eighteen years from the turning point of 1829. By degrees, as he +gained fame and ceased to be in the most pressing want of money, +Balzac left off to some extent, though never entirely, those +miscellaneous writings--reviews (including puffs), comic or general +sketches, political diatribes, "physiologies" and the like--which, +with his discarded prefaces and much more interesting matter, were at +last, not many years ago, included in four stout volumes of the +_Edition Definitive_. With the exception of the _Physiologies_ (a sort +of short satiric analysis of this or that class, character, or +personage), which were very popular in the reign of Louis Philippe in +France, and which Albert Smith and others introduced into England, +Balzac did not do any of this miscellaneous work extremely well. Very +shrewd observations are to be found in his reviews, for instance his +indication, in reviewing La Touche's _Fragoletta_, of that common +fault of ambitious novels, a sort of woolly and "ungraspable" +looseness of construction and story, which constantly bewilders the +reader as to what is going on. But, as a rule, he was thinking too +much of his own work and his own principles of working to enter very +thoroughly into the work of others. His politics, those of a moderate +but decided Royalist and Conservative, were, as has been said, +intelligent in theory, but in practice a little distinguished by that +neglect of actual business detail which has been noticed in his +speculations. + +At last, in the summer of 1847, it seemed as if the Rachel for whom he +had served nearly if not quite the full fourteen years already, and +whose husband had long been out of the way, would at last grant +herself to him. He was invited to Vierzschovnia in the Ukraine, the +seat of Madame Hanska, or in strictness of her son-in-law, Count +Georges Mniszech; and as the visit was apparently for no restricted +period, and Balzac's pretensions to the lady's hand were notorious, it +might have seemed that he was as good as accepted. But to assume this +would have been to mistake what perhaps the greatest creation of +Balzac's great English contemporary and counterpart on the one side, +as Thackeray was his contemporary and counterpart on the other, +considered to be the malignity of widows. What the reasons were which +made Madame Hanska delay so long in doing what she did at last, and +might just as well, it would seem, have done years before, is not +certainly known, and it would be quite unprofitable to discuss them. +But it was on the 8th of October 1847 that Balzac first wrote to his +sister from Vierzschovnia, and it was not till the 14th of March 1850 +that, "in the parish church of Saint Barbara at Berditchef, by the +Count Abbe Czarski, representing the Bishop of Jitomir (this is as +characteristic of Balzac in one way as what follows is in another) a +Madame Eve de Balzac, born Countess Rzevuska, or a Madame Honore de +Balzac or a Madame de Balzac the elder" came into existence. + +It does not appear that Balzac was exactly unhappy during this huge +probation, which was broken by one short visit to Paris. The interest +of uncertainty was probably much for his ardent and unquiet spirit, +and though he did very little literary work for him, one may suspect +that he would not have done very much if he had stayed at Paris, for +signs of exhaustion, not of genius but of physical power, had shown +themselves before he left home. But it is not unjust or cruel to say +that by the delay "Madame Eve de Balzac" (her actual baptismal name +was Evelina) practically killed her husband. These winters in the +severe climate of Russian Poland were absolutely fatal to a +constitution, and especially to lungs, already deeply affected. At +Vierzschovnia itself he had illnesses, from which he narrowly escaped +with life, before the marriage; his heart broke down after it; and he +and his wife did not reach Paris till the end of May. Less than three +months afterwards, on the 18th of August, he died, having been visited +on the very day of his death in the Paradise of bric-a-brac which he +had created for his Eve in the Rue Fortunee--a name too provocative of +Nemesis--by Victor Hugo, the chief maker in verse as he himself was +the chief maker in prose of France. He was buried at Pere la Chaise. +The after-fortunes of his house and its occupants were not happy: but +they do not concern us. + +In person Balzac was a typical Frenchman, as indeed he was in most +ways. From his portraits there would seem to have been more force and +address than distinction or refinement in his appearance, but, as has +been already observed, his period was one ungrateful to the +iconographer. His character, not as a writer but as a man, must occupy +us a little longer. For some considerable time--indeed it may be said +until the publication of his letters--it was not very favorably judged +on the whole. We may, of course, dismiss the childish scandals +(arising, as usual, from clumsy or malevolent misinterpretation of +such books as the _Physiologie de Mariage_, the _Peau de Chagrin_, and +a few others), which gave rise to the caricatures of him such as that +of which we read, representing him in a monk's dress at a table +covered with bottles and supporting a young person on his knee, the +whole garnished with the epigraph: Scenes de la Vie Cachee. They seem +to have given him, personally, a very unnecessary annoyance, and +indeed he was always rather sensitive to criticism. This kind of +stupid libel will never cease to be devised by the envious, swallowed +by the vulgar, and simply neglected by the wise. But Balzac's +peculiarities, both of life and of work, lent themselves rather +fatally to a subtler misconstruction which he also anticipated and +tried to remove, but which took a far stronger hold. He was +represented--and in the absence of any intimate male friends to +contradict the representation, it was certain to obtain some currency +--as in his artistic person a sardonic libeler of mankind, who cared +only to take foibles and vices for his subjects, and who either left +goodness and virtue out of sight altogether, or represented them as +the qualities of fools. In private life he was held up as at the best +a self-centered egotist who cared for nothing but himself and his own +work, capable of interrupting one friend who told him of the death of +a sister by the suggestion that they should change the subject and +talk of "something real, of _Eugenie Grandet," and of levying a fifty +per cent commission on another who had written a critical notice of +his, Balzac's, life and works.* + +* Sandeau and Gautier, the victims in these two stories, were + neither spiteful, nor mendacious, nor irrational, so they are + probably true. The second was possibly due to Balzac's odd notions + of "business being business." The first, I have quite recently + seen reason to think, may have been a sort of reminiscence of one + of the traits in Diderot's extravagant encomium on Richardson. + +With the first of these charges he himself, on different occasions, +rather vainly endeavored to grapple, once drawing up an elaborate list +of his virtuous and vicious women, and showing that the former +outnumbered the latter; and, again, laboring (with that curious lack +of sense of humor which distinguishes all Frenchmen but a very few, +and distinguished him eminently) to show that though no doubt it is +very difficult to make a virtuous person interesting, he, Honore de +Balzac, had attempted it, and succeeded in it, on a quite surprising +number of occasions. + +The fact is that if he had handled this last matter rather more +lightly his answer would have been a sufficient one, and that in any +case the charge is not worth answering. It does not lie against the +whole of his work; and if it lay as conclusively as it does against +Swift's, it would not necessarily matter. To the artist in analysis as +opposed to the romance-writer, folly always, and villainy sometimes, +does supply a much better subject than virtuous success, and if he +makes his fools and his villains lifelike and supplies them with a +fair contrast of better things, there is nothing more to be said. He +will not, indeed, be a Shakespeare, or a Dante, or even a Scott; but +we may be very well satisfied with him as a Fielding, a Thackeray, or +a Balzac. As to the more purely personal matter I own that it was some +time before I could persuade myself that Balzac, to speak familiarly, +was a much better fellow than others, and I myself, have been +accustomed to think him. But it is also some time since I came to the +conclusion that he was so, and my conversion is not to be attributed +to any editorial retainer. His education in a lawyer's office, the +accursed advice about the _bonne speculation_, and his constant +straitenings for money, will account for his sometimes looking after +the main chance rather too narrowly; and as for the Eugenie Grandet +story (even if the supposition referred to in a note above be +fanciful) it requires no great stretch of charity or comprehension to +see in it nothing more awkward, very easily misconstrued, but not +necessarily in the least heartless or brutal attempt of a rather +absent and very much self-centered recluse absorbed in one subject, to +get his interlocutor as well as himself out of painful and useless +dwelling on sorrowful matters. Self-centered and self-absorbed Balzac +no doubt was; he could not have lived his life or produced his work if +he had been anything else. And it must be remembered that he owed +extremely little to others; that he had the independence as well as +the isolation of the self-centered; that he never sponged or fawned on +a great man, or wronged others of what was due to them. The only +really unpleasant thing about him that I know, and even this is +perhaps due to ignorance of all sides of the matter, is a slight touch +of snobbishness now and then, especially in those late letters from +Vierzschovnia to Madame de Balzac and Madame Surville, in which, while +inundating his mother and sister with commissions and requests for +service, he points out to them what great people the Hanskas and +Mniszechs are, what infinite honor and profit it will be to be +connected with them, and how desirable it is to keep struggling +engineer brothers-in-law and ne'er-do-well brothers in the colonies +out of sight lest they should disgust the magnates. + +But these are "sma' sums, sma' sums," as Bailie Jarvie says; and +smallness of any kind has, whatever it may have to do with Balzac the +man, nothing to do with Balzac the writer. With him as with some +others, but not as with the larger number, the sense of _greatness_ +increases the longer and the more fully he is studied. He resembles, I +think, Goethe more than any other man of letters--certainly more than +any other of the present century--in having done work which is very +frequently, if not even commonly, faulty, and in yet requiring that +his work shall be known as a whole. His appeal is cumulative; it +repeats itself on each occasion with a slight difference, and though +there may now and then be the same faults to be noticed, they are +almost invariably accompanied, not merely by the same, but by fresh +merits. + +As has been said at the beginning of this essay, no attempt will be +made in it to give that running survey of Balzac's work which is +always useful and sometimes indispensable in treatment of the kind. +But something like a summing up of that subject will here be attempted +because it is really desirable that in embarking on so vast a voyage +the reader should have some general chart--some notes of the soundings +and log generally of those who have gone before him. + +There are two things, then, which it is more especially desirable to +keep constantly before one in reading Balzac--two things which, taken +together, constitute his almost unique value, and two things which not +a few critics have failed to take together in him, being under the +impression that the one excludes the other, and that to admit the +other is tantamount to a denial of the one. These two things are, +first, an immense attention to detail, sometimes observed, sometimes +invented or imagined; and secondly; a faculty of regarding these +details through a mental lens or arrangement of lenses almost peculiar +to himself, which at once combines, enlarges, and invests them with a +peculiar magical halo or mirage. The two thousand personages of the +_Comedie Humaine_ are, for the most part, "signaled," as the French +official word has it, marked and denoted by the minutest traits of +character, gesture, gait, clothing, abode, what not; the transactions +recorded are very often given with a scrupulous and microscopic +accuracy of reporting which no detective could outdo. Defoe is not +more circumstantial in detail of fact than Balzac; Richardson is +hardly more prodigal of character-stroke. Yet a very large proportion +of these characters, of these circumstances, are evidently things +invented or imagined, not observed. And in addition to this the +artist's magic glass, his Balzacian speculum, if we may so say (for +none else has ever had it), transforms even the most rigid observation +into something flickering and fanciful, the outline as of shadows on +the wall, not the precise contour of etching or of the camera. + +It is curious, but not unexampled, that both Balzac himself when he +struggled in argument with his critics and those of his partisans who +have been most zealously devoted to him, have usually tried to exalt +the first and less remarkable of these gifts over the second and +infinitely more remarkable. Balzac protested strenuously against the +use of the word "gigantesque" in reference to his work; and of course +it is susceptible of an unhandsome innuendo. But if we leave that +innuendo aside, if we adopt the sane reflection that "gigantesque" +does not exceed "gigantic," or assert as constant failure of +greatness, but only indicates that the magnifying process is carried +on with a certain indiscriminateness, we shall find none, I think, +which so thoroughly well describes him. + +The effect of this singular combination of qualities, apparently the +most opposite, may be partly anticipated, but not quite. It results +occasionally in a certain shortcoming as regards _verite vraie_, +absolute artistic truth to nature. Those who would range Balzac in +point of such artistic veracity on a level with poetical and universal +realists like Shakespeare and Dante, or prosaic and particular +realists like Thackeray and Fielding, seem not only to be utterly +wrong but to pay their idol the worst of all compliments, that of +ignoring his own special qualifications. The province of Balzac may +not be--I do no think it is--identical, much less co-extensive, with +that of nature. But it is his own--a partly real, partly fantastic +region, where the lights, the shades, the dimensions, and the physical +laws are slightly different from those of this world of ours, but with +which, owing to the things it has in common with that world, we are +able to sympathize, which we can traverse and comprehend. Every now +and then the artist uses his observing faculty more, and his +magnifying and distorting lens less; every now and then he reverses +the proportion. Some tastes will like him best in the one stage; some +in the other; the happier constituted will like him best in both. +These latter will decline to put _Eugenie Grandet_ above the _Peau de +Chagrin_, or _Le Pere Goriot_ above the wonderful handful of tales +which includes _La Recherche de l'Absolu_ and _Le Chef-d'oeuvre +Inconnu_, though they will no doubt recognize that even in the first +two named members of these pairs the Balzacian quality, that of +magnifying and rendering grandiose, is present, and that the martyrdom +of Eugenie, the avarice of her father, the blind self-devotion of +Goriot to his thankless and worthless children, would not be what they +are if they were seen through a perfectly achromatic and normal +medium. + +This specially Balzacian quality is, I think, unique. It is like--it +may almost be said to _be_--the poetic imagination, present in +magnificent volume and degree, but in some miraculous way deprived and +sterilized of the specially poetical quality. By this I do not of +course mean that Balzac did not write in verse: we have a few verses +of his, and they are pretty bad, but that is neither here nor there. +The difference between Balzac and a great poet lies not in the fact +that the one fills the whole page with printed words, and the other +only a part of it--but in something else. If I could put that +something else into distinct words I should therein attain the +philosopher's stone, the elixir of life, the _primum mobile_, the +_grand arcanum_, not merely of criticism but of all things. It might +be possible to coast about it, to hint at it, by adumbrations and in +consequences. But it is better and really more helpful to face the +difficulty boldly, and to say that Balzac, approaching a great poet +nearer perhaps than any other prose writer in any language, is +distinguished from one by the absence of the very last touch, the +finally constituting quiddity, which makes a great poet different from +Balzac. + +Now, when we make this comparison, it is of the first interest to +remember--and it is one of the uses of the comparison, that it +suggests the remembrance of the fact--that the great poets have +usually been themselves extremely exact observers of detail. It has +not made them great poets; but they would not be great poets without +it. And when Eugenie Grandet starts from _le petit banc de bois_ at +the reference to it in her scoundrelly cousin's letter (to take only +one instance out of a thousand), we see in Balzac the same +observation, subject to the limitation just mentioned, that we see in +Dante and Shakespeare, in Chaucer and Tennyson. But the great poets do +not as a rule _accumulate_ detail. Balzac does, and from this very +accumulation he manages to derive that singular gigantesque vagueness +--differing from the poetic vague, but ranking next to it--which I +have here ventured to note as his distinguishing quality. He bewilders +us a very little by it, and he gives us the impression that he has +slightly bewildered himself. But the compensations of the bewilderment +are large. + +For in this labyrinth and whirl of things, in this heat and hurry of +observation and imagination, the special intoxication of Balzac +consists. Every great artist has his own means of producing this +intoxication, and it differs in result like the stimulus of beauty or +of wine. Those persons who are unfortunate enough to see in Balzac +little or nothing but an ingenious piler-up of careful strokes--a man +of science taking his human documents and classing them after an +orderly fashion in portfolio and deed-box--must miss this intoxication +altogether. It is much more agreeable as well as much more accurate to +see in the manufacture of the _Comedie_ the process of a Cyclopean +workshop--the bustle, the hurry, the glare and shadow, the steam and +sparks of Vulcanian forging. The results, it is true, are by no means +confused or disorderly--neither were those of the forges that worked +under Lipari--but there certainly went much more to them than the +dainty fingering of a literary fretwork-maker or the dull rummagings +of a realist _a la Zola_. + +In part, no doubt, and in great part, the work of Balzac is +dream-stuff rather than life-stuff, and it is all the better for that. +What is better than dreams? But the coherence of his visions, their +bulk, their solidity, the way in which they return to us and we return +to them, make them such dream-stuff as there is all too little of in +this world. If it is true that evil on the whole predominates over good +in the vision of this "Voyant," as Philarete Chasles so justly called +him, two very respectable, and in one case very large, though somewhat +opposed divisions of mankind, the philosophic pessimist and the +convinced and consistent Christian believer, will tell us that this is +at least not one of the points in which it is unfaithful to life. If +the author is closer and more faithful in his study of meanness and +vice than in his studies of nobility and virtue, the blame is due at +least as much to his models as to himself. If he has seldom succeeded +in combining a really passionate with a really noble conception of +love, very few of his countrymen have been more fortunate in that +respect. If in some of his types--his journalists, his married women, +and others--he seems to have sacrificed to conventions, let us +remember that those who know attribute to his conventions such a power +if not altogether such a holy influence that two generations of the +people he painted have actually lived more and more up to his painting +of them. + +And last of all, but also greatest, has to be considered the immensity +of his imaginative achievement, the huge space that he has filled for +us with vivid creation, the range of amusement, of instruction, of +(after a fashion) edification which he has thrown open for us all to +walk in. It is possible that he himself and others more or less +well-meaningly, though more or less maladroitly, following his lead, +may have exaggerated the coherence and the architectural design of the +_Comedie_. But it has coherence and it has design; nor shall we find +anything exactly to parallel it. In mere bulk the _Comedie_ probably, +if not certainly, exceeds the production of any novelist of the first +class in any kind of fiction except Dumas, and with Dumas, for various +and well-known reasons, there is no possibility of comparing it. All +others yield in bulk; all in a certain concentration and intensity; +none even aims at anything like the same system and completeness. It +must be remembered that owing to shortness of life, lateness of +beginning, and the diversion of the author to other work, the +_Comedie_ is the production, and not the sole production, of some +seventeen or eighteen years at most. Not a volume of it, for all that +failure to reach the completest perfection in form and style which has +been acknowledged, can be accused of thinness, of scamped work, of +mere repetition, of mere cobbling up. Every one bears the marks of +steady and ferocious labor, as well as of the genius which had at last +come where it had been so earnestly called and had never gone away +again. It is possible to overpraise Balzac in parts or to mispraise +him as a whole. But so long as inappropriate and superfluous +comparisons are avoided and as his own excellence is recognized and +appreciated, it is scarcely possible to overestimate that excellence +in itself and for itself. He stands alone; even with Dickens, who is +his nearest analogue, he shows far more points of difference than of +likeness. His vastness of bulk is not more remarkable than his +peculiarity of quality; and when these two things coincide in +literature or elsewhere, then that in which they coincide may be +called, and must be called, Great, without hesitation and without +reserve. + + GEORGE SAINTSBURY. + + + + + APPENDIX + + THE BALZAC PLAN + OF THE COMEDIE HUMAINE + + + +The form in which the Comedie Humaine was left by its author, with the +exceptions of _Le Depute d'Arcis (incomplete) and _Les Petits +Bourgeois_, both of which were added, some years later, by the Edition +Definitive. + +The original French titles are followed by their English equivalents. +Literal translations have been followed, excepting a few instances +where preference is shown for a clearer or more comprehensive English +title. + +[Note from Team Balzac, the Etext preparers: In some cases more than +one English translation is commonly used for various translations/ +editions. In such cases the first translation is from the Saintsbury +edition copyrighted in 1901 and that is the title referred to in the +personages following most of the stories. We have added other title +translations of which we are currently aware for the readers' +convenience.] + + + COMEDIE HUMAINE + + +SCENES DE LA VIE PRIVEE +SCENES FROM PRIVATE LIFE + +La Maison du Chat-qui Pelote +At the Sign of the Cat and Racket + +Le Bal de Sceaux +The Ball at Sceaux + +La Bourse +The Purse + +La Vendetta +The Vendetta + +Mme. Firmiani +Madame Firmiani + +Une Double Famille +A Second Home + +La Paix du Menage +Domestic Peace + +La Fausse Maitresse +The Imaginary Mistress +Paz + +Etude de femme +A Study of Woman + +Autre etude de femme +Another Study of Woman + +La Grande Breteche +La Grand Breteche + +Albert Savarus +Albert Savarus + +Memoires de deux Jeunes Mariees +Letters of Two Brides + +Une Fille d'Eve +A Daughter of Eve + +La Femme de Trente Ans +A Woman of Thirty + +La Femme abandonnee +The Deserted Woman + +La Grenadiere +La Grenadiere + +Le Message +The Message + +Gobseck +Gobseck + +Le Contrat de Mariage +A Marriage Settlement +A Marriage Contract + +Un Debut dans la vie +A Start in Life + +Modeste Mignon +Modeste Mignon + +Beatrix +Beatrix + +Honorine +Honorine + +Le Colonel Chabert +Colonel Chabert + +La Messe de l'Athee +The Atheist's Mass + +L'Interdiction +The Commission in Lunacy + +Pierre Grassou +Pierre Grassou + + +SCENES DE LA VIE PROVINCE +SCENES FROM PROVINCIAL LIFE + +Ursule Mirouet +Ursule Mirouet + +Eugenie Grandet +Eugenie Grandet + +Les Celibataires: +The Celibates: + Pierrette + Pierrette + + Le Cure de Tours + The Vicar of Tours + +Un Menage de Garcon +A Bachelor's Establishment +The Two Brothers +The Black Sheep +La Rabouilleuse + +Les Parisiens en Province: +Parisians in the Country: + L'illustre Gaudissart + Gaudissart the Great + The Illustrious Gaudissart + + La Muse du departement + The Muse of the Department + +Les Rivalites: +The Jealousies of a Country Town: + La Vieille Fille + The Old Maid + + Le Cabinet des antiques + The Collection of Antiquities + +Le Lys dans la Vallee +The Lily of the Valley + +Illusions Perdues:--I. +Lost Illusions:--I. + Les Deux Poetes + The Two Poets + + Un Grand homme de province a Paris, 1re partie + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris, Part 1 + +Illusions Perdues:--II. +Lost Illusions:--II. + Un Grand homme de province, 2e p. + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris, Part 2 + + Eve et David + Eve and David + + +SCENES DE LA VIE PARISIENNE +SCENES FROM PARISIAN LIFE + +Splendeurs et Miseres des Courtisanes: +Scenes from a Courtesan's Life: + Esther heureuse + Esther Happy + + A combien l'amour revient aux vieillards + What Love Costs an Old Man + + Ou menent les mauvais Chemins + The End of Evil Ways + + La derniere Incarnation de Vautrin + Vautrin's Last Avatar + +Un Prince de la Boheme +A Prince of Bohemia + +Un Homme d'affaires +A Man of Business + +Gaudissart II. +Gaudissart II. + +Les Comediens sans le savoir +The Unconscious Humorists +The Unconscious Comedians + +Histoire des Treize: +The Thirteen: + Ferragus + Ferragus + + La Duchesse de Langeais + The Duchesse de Langeais + + La Fille aux yeux d'or + The Girl with the Golden Eyes + +Le Pere Goriot +Father Goriot +Old Goriot + +Grandeur et Decadence de Cesar Birotteau +The Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau + +La Maison Nucingen +The Firm of Nucingen + +Les Secrets de la princesse de Cadignan +The Secrets of a Princess +The Secrets of the Princess Cadignan + +Les Employes +The Government Clerks +Bureaucracy + +Sarrasine +Sarrasine + +Facino Cane +Facine Cane + +Les Parents Pauvres:--I. +Poor Relations:--I. + La Cousine Bette + Cousin Betty + +Les Parents Pauvres:--II. +Poor Relations:--II. + Le Cousin Pons + Cousin Pons + +Les Petits Bourgeois +The Middle Classes +The Lesser Bourgeoise + + +SCENES DE LA VIE POLITIQUE +SCENES FROM POLITICAL LIFE + +Une Tenebreuse Affaire +The Gondreville Mystery +An Historical Mystery + +Un Episode sous la Terreur +An Episode Under the Terror + +L'Envers de l'Histoire Contemporaine: +The Seamy Side of History: +The Brotherhood of Consolation: + Mme. de la Chanterie + Madame de la Chanterie + + L'Initie + Initiated + The Initiate + +Z. Marcas +Z. Marcas + +Le Depute d'Arcis +The Member for Arcis +The Deputy for Arcis + + +SCENES DE LA VIE MILITAIRE +SCENES FROM MILITARY LIFE + +Les Chouans +The Chouans + +Une Passion dans le desert +A Passion in the Desert + + +SCENES DE LA VIE DE CAMPAGNE +SCENES FROM COUNTRY LIFE + +Le Medecin de Campagne +The Country Doctor + +Le Cure de Village +The Country Parson +The Village Rector + +Les Paysans +The Peasantry +Sons of the Soil + + +ETUDES PHILOSOPHIQUES +PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES + +La Peau de Chagrin +The Magic Skin + +La Recherche de l'Absolu +The Quest of the Absolute +The Alkahest + +Jesus-Christ en Flandre +Christ in Flanders + +Melmoth reconcilie +Melmoth Reconciled + +Le Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu +The Unknown Masterpiece +The Hidden Masterpiece + +L'Enfant Maudit +The Hated Son + +Gambara +Gambara + +Massimilla Doni +Massimilla Doni + +Les Marana +The Maranas +Juana + +Adieu +Farewell + +Le Requisitionnaire +The Conscript +The Recruit + +El Verdugo +El Verdugo + +Un Drame au bord de la mer +A Seaside Tragedy +A Drama on the Seashore + +L'Auberge rouge +The Red Inn + +L'Elixir de longue vie +The Elixir of Life + +Maitre Cornelius +Maitre Cornelius + +Sur Catherine de Medicis: +About Catherine de' Medici + Le Martyr calviniste + The Calvinist Martyr + + La Confidence des Ruggieri + The Ruggieri's Secret + + Les Deux Reves + The Two Dreams + +Louis Lambert +Louis Lambert + +Les Proscrits +The Exiles + +Seraphita +Seraphita + + + + + AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION + + + +In giving the general title of "The Human Comedy" to a work begun +nearly thirteen years since, it is necessary to explain its motive, to +relate its origin, and briefly sketch its plan, while endeavoring to +speak of these matters as though I had no personal interest in them. +This is not so difficult as the public might imagine. Few works +conduce to much vanity; much labor conduces to great diffidence. This +observation accounts for the study of their own works made by +Corneille, Moliere, and other great writers; if it is impossible to +equal them in their fine conceptions, we may try to imitate them in +this feeling. + +The idea of _The Human Comedy_ was at first as a dream to me, one of +those impossible projects which we caress and then let fly; a chimera +that gives us a glimpse of its smiling woman's face, and forthwith +spreads its wings and returns to a heavenly realm of phantasy. But +this chimera, like many another, has become a reality; has its +behests, its tyranny, which must be obeyed. + +The idea originated in a comparison between Humanity and Animality. + +It is a mistake to suppose that the great dispute which has lately +made a stir, between Cuvier and Geoffroi Saint-Hilaire, arose from a +scientific innovation. Unity of structure, under other names, had +occupied the greatest minds during the two previous centuries. As we +read the extraordinary writings of the mystics who studied the +sciences in their relation to infinity, such as Swedenborg, +Saint-Martin, and others, and the works of the greatest authors on +Natural History--Leibnitz, Buffon, Charles Bonnet, etc., we detect in +the _monads_ of Leibnitz, in the _organic molecules_ of Buffon, in the +_vegetative force_ of Needham, in the correlation of similar organs of +Charles Bonnet--who in 1760 was so bold as to write, "Animals vegetate +as plants do"--we detect, I say, the rudiments of the great law of +Self for Self, which lies at the root of _Unity of Plan_. There is but +one Animal. The Creator works on a single model for every organized +being. "The Animal" is elementary, and takes its external form, or, to +be accurate, the differences in its form, from the environment in +which it is obliged to develop. Zoological species are the result of +these differences. The announcement and defence of this system, which +is indeed in harmony with our preconceived ideas of Divine Power, will +be the eternal glory of Geoffroi Saint-Hilaire, Cuvier's victorious +opponent on this point of higher science, whose triumph was hailed by +Goethe in the last article he wrote. + +I, for my part, convinced of this scheme of nature long before the +discussion to which it has given rise, perceived that in this respect +society resembled nature. For does not society modify Man, according +to the conditions in which he lives and acts, into men as manifold as +the species in Zoology? The differences between a soldier, an artisan, +a man of business, a lawyer, an idler, a student, a statesman, a +merchant, a sailor, a poet, a beggar, a priest, are as great, though +not so easy to define, as those between the wolf, the lion, the ass, +the crow, the shark, the seal, the sheep, etc. Thus social species +have always existed, and will always exist, just as there are +zoological species. If Buffon could produce a magnificent work by +attempting to represent in a book the whole realm of zoology, was +there not room for a work of the same kind on society? But the limits +set by nature to the variations of animals have no existence in +society. When Buffon describes the lion, he dismisses the lioness with +a few phrases; but in society a wife is not always the female of the +male. There may be two perfectly dissimilar beings in one household. +The wife of a shopkeeper is sometimes worthy of a prince, and the wife +of a prince is often worthless compared with the wife of an artisan. +The social state has freaks which Nature does not allow herself; it is +nature _plus_ society. The description of social species would thus be +at least double that of animal species, merely in view of the two +sexes. Then, among animals the drama is limited; there is scarcely any +confusion; they turn and rend each other--that is all. Men, too, rend +each other; but their greater or less intelligence makes the struggle +far more complicated. Though some savants do not yet admit that the +animal nature flows into human nature through an immense tide of life, +the grocer certainly becomes a peer, and the noble sometimes sinks to +the lowest social grade. Again, Buffon found that life was extremely +simple among animals. Animals have little property, and neither arts +nor sciences; while man, by a law that has yet to be sought, has a +tendency to express his culture, his thoughts, and his life in +everything he appropriates to his use. Though Leuwenhoek, Swammerdam, +Spallanzani, Reaumur, Charles Bonnet, Muller, Haller and other patient +investigators have shown us how interesting are the habits of animals, +those of each kind, are, at least to our eyes, always and in every age +alike; whereas the dress, the manners, the speech, the dwelling of a +prince, a banker, an artist, a citizen, a priest, and a pauper are +absolutely unlike, and change with every phase of civilization. + +Hence the work to be written needed a threefold form--men, women, and +things; that is to say, persons and the material expression of their +minds; man, in short, and life. + +As we read the dry and discouraging list of events called History, who +can have failed to note that the writers of all periods, in Egypt, +Persia, Greece, and Rome, have forgotten to give us a history of +manners? The fragment of Petronius on the private life of the Romans +excites rather than satisfies our curiosity. It was from observing +this great void in the field of history that the Abbe Barthelemy +devoted his life to a reconstruction of Greek manners in _Le Jeune +Anacharsis_. + +But how could such a drama, with the four or five thousand persons +which society offers, be made interesting? How, at the same time, +please the poet, the philosopher, and the masses who want both poetry +and philosophy under striking imagery? Though I could conceive of the +importance and of the poetry of such a history of the human heart, I +saw no way of writing it; for hitherto the most famous story-tellers +had spent their talent in creating two or three typical actors, in +depicting one aspect of life. It was with this idea that I read the +works of Walter Scott. Walter Scott, the modern troubadour, or finder +(_trouvere=trouveur_), had just then given an aspect of grandeur to a +class of composition unjustly regarded as of the second rank. Is it +not really more difficult to compete with personal and parochial +interests by writing of Daphnis and Chloe, Roland, Amadis, Panurge, +Don Quixote, Manon Lescaut, Clarissa, Lovelace, Robinson Crusoe, Gil +Blas, Ossian, Julie d'Etanges, My Uncle Toby, Werther, Corinne, +Adolphe, Paul and Virginia, Jeanie Deans, Claverhouse, Ivanhoe, +Manfred, Mignon, than to set forth in order facts more or less similar +in every country, to investigate the spirit of laws that have fallen +into desuetude, to review the theories which mislead nations, or, like +some metaphysicians, to explain what _Is_? In the first place, these +actors, whose existence becomes more prolonged and more authentic than +that of the generations which saw their birth, almost always live +solely on condition of their being a vast reflection of the present. +Conceived in the womb of their own period, the whole heart of humanity +stirs within their frame, which often covers a complete system of +philosophy. Thus Walter Scott raised to the dignity of the philosophy +of History the literature which, from age to age, sets perennial gems +in the poetic crown of every nation where letters are cultivated. He +vivified it with the spirit of the past; he combined drama, dialogue, +portrait, scenery, and description; he fused the marvelous with truth +--the two elements of the times; and he brought poetry into close +contact with the familiarity of the humblest speech. But as he had not +so much devised a system as hit upon a manner in the ardor of his +work, or as its logical outcome, he never thought of connecting his +compositions in such a way as to form a complete history of which each +chapter was a novel, and each novel the picture of a period. + +It was by discerning this lack of unity, which in no way detracts from +the Scottish writer's greatness, that I perceived at once the scheme +which would favor the execution of my purpose, and the possibility of +executing it. Though dazzled, so to speak, by Walter Scott's amazing +fertility, always himself and always original, I did not despair, for +I found the source of his genius in the infinite variety of human +nature. Chance is the greatest romancer in the world; we have only to +study it. French society would be the real author; I should only be +the secretary. By drawing up an inventory of vices and virtues, by +collecting the chief facts of the passions, by depicting characters, +by choosing the principal incidents of social life, by composing types +out of a combination of homogeneous characteristics, I might perhaps +succeed in writing the history which so many historians have +neglected: that of Manners. By patience and perseverance I might +produce for France in the nineteenth century the book which we must +all regret that Rome, Athens, Tyre, Memphis, Persia, and India have +not bequeathed to us; that history of their social life which, +prompted by the Abbe Barthelemy, Monteil patiently and steadily tried +to write for the Middle Ages, but in an unattractive form. + +This work, so far, was nothing. By adhering to the strict lines of a +reproduction a writer might be a more or less faithful, and more or +less successful, painter of types of humanity, a narrator of the +dramas of private life, an archaeologist of social furniture, a +cataloguer of professions, a registrar of good and evil; but to +deserve the praise of which every artist must be ambitious, must I not +also investigate the reasons or the cause of these social effects, +detect the hidden sense of this vast assembly of figures, passions, +and incidents? And finally, having sought--I will not say having found +--this reason, this motive power, must I not reflect on first +principles, and discover in what particulars societies approach or +deviate from the eternal law of truth and beauty? In spite of the wide +scope of the preliminaries, which might of themselves constitute a +book, the work, to be complete, would need a conclusion. Thus +depicted, society ought to bear in itself the reason of its working. + +The law of the writer, in virtue of which he is a writer, and which I +do not hesitate to say makes him the equal, or perhaps the superior, +of the statesman, is his judgment, whatever it may be, on human +affairs, and his absolute devotion to certain principles. Machiavelli, +Hobbes, Bossuet, Leibnitz, Kant, Montesquieu, _are_ the science which +statesmen apply. "A writer ought to have settled opinions on morals +and politics; he should regard himself as a tutor of men; for men need +no masters to teach them to doubt," says Bonald. I took these noble +words as my guide long ago; they are the written law of the +monarchical writer. And those who would confute me by my own words +will find that they have misinterpreted some ironical phrase, or that +they have turned against me a speech given to one of my actors--a +trick peculiar to calumniators. + +As to the intimate purpose, the soul of this work, these are the +principles on which it is based. + +Man is neither good nor bad; he is born with instincts and +capabilities; society, far from depraving him, as Rousseau asserts, +improves him, makes him better; but self-interest also develops his +evil tendencies. Christianity, above all, Catholicism, being--as I +have pointed out in the Country Doctor (_le Medecin de Campagne_)--a +complete system for the repression of the depraved tendencies of man, +is the most powerful element of social order. + +In reading attentively the presentment of society cast, as it were, +from the life, with all that is good and all that is bad in it, we +learn this lesson--if thought, or if passion, which combines thought +and feeling, is the vital social element, it is also its destructive +element. In this respect social life is like the life of man. Nations +live long only by moderating their vital energy. Teaching, or rather +education, by religious bodies is the grand principle of life for +nations, the only means of diminishing the sum of evil and increasing +the sum of good in all society. Thought, the living principle of good +and ill, can only be trained, quelled, and guided by religion. The +only possible religion is Christianity (see the letter from Paris in +"Louis Lambert," in which the young mystic explains, _a propos_ to +Swedenborg's doctrines, how there has never been but one religion +since the world began). Christianity created modern nationalities, and +it will preserve them. Hence, no doubt, the necessity for the +monarchical principle. Catholicism and Royalty are twin principles. + +As to the limits within which these two principles should be confined +by various institutions, so that they may not become absolute, every +one will feel that a brief preface ought not to be a political +treatise. I cannot, therefore, enter on religious discussions, nor on +the political discussions of the day. I write under the light of two +eternal truths--Religion and Monarchy; two necessities, as they are +shown to be by contemporary events, towards which every writer of +sound sense ought to try to guide the country back. Without being an +enemy to election, which is an excellent principle as a basis of +legislation, I reject election regarded as _the only social +instrument_, especially so badly organized as it now is (1842); for it +fails to represent imposing minorities, whose ideas and interests +would occupy the attention of a monarchical government. Elective power +extended to all gives us government by the masses, the only +irresponsible form of government, under which tyranny is unlimited, +for it calls itself law. Besides, I regard the family and not the +individual as the true social unit. In this respect, at the risk of +being thought retrograde, I side with Bossuet and Bonald instead of +going with modern innovators. Since election has become the only +social instrument, if I myself were to exercise it no contradiction +between my acts and my words should be inferred. An engineer points +out that a bridge is about to fall, that it is dangerous for any one +to cross it; but he crosses it himself when it is the only road to the +town. Napoleon adapted election to the spirit of the French nation +with wonderful skill. The least important members of his Legislative +Body became the most famous orators of the Chamber after the +Restoration. No Chamber has ever been the equal of the _Corps +Legislatif_, comparing them man for man. The elective system of the +Empire was, then, indisputably the best. + +Some persons may, perhaps, think that this declaration is somewhat +autocratic and self-assertive. They will quarrel with the novelist for +wanting to be an historian, and will call him to account for writing +politics. I am simply fulfilling an obligation--that is my reply. The +work I have undertaken will be as long as a history; I was compelled +to explain the logic of it, hitherto unrevealed, and its principles +and moral purpose. + +Having been obliged to withdraw the prefaces formerly published, in +response to essentially ephemeral criticisms, I will retain only one +remark. + +Writers who have a purpose in view, were it only a reversion to +principles familiar in the past because they are eternal, should +always clear the ground. Now every one who, in the domain of ideas, +brings his stone by pointing out an abuse, or setting a mark on some +evil that it may be removed--every such man is stigmatized as immoral. +The accusation of immorality, which has never failed to be cast at the +courageous writer, is, after all, the last that can be brought when +nothing else remains to be said to a romancer. If you are truthful in +your pictures; if by dint of daily and nightly toil you succeed in +writing the most difficult language in the world, the word _immoral_ +is flung in your teeth. Socrates was immoral; Jesus Christ was +immoral; they both were persecuted in the name of the society they +overset or reformed. When a man is to be killed he is taxed with +immorality. These tactics, familiar in party warfare, are a disgrace +to those who use them. Luther and Calvin knew well what they were +about when they shielded themselves behind damaged worldly interests! +And they lived all the days of their life. + +When depicting all society, sketching it in the immensity of its +turmoil, it happened--it could not but happen--that the picture +displayed more of evil than of good; that some part of the fresco +represented a guilty couple; and the critics at once raised a cry of +immorality, without pointing out the morality of another position +intended to be a perfect contrast. As the critic knew nothing of the +general plan I could forgive him, all the more because one can no more +hinder criticism than the use of eyes, tongues, and judgment. Also the +time for an impartial verdict is not yet come for me. And, after all, +the author who cannot make up his mind to face the fire of criticism +should no more think of writing than a traveler should start on his +journey counting on a perpetually clear sky. On this point it remains +to be said that the most conscientious moralists doubt greatly whether +society can show as many good actions as bad ones; and in the picture +I have painted of it there are more virtuous figures than +reprehensible ones. Blameworthy actions, faults and crimes, from the +lightest to the most atrocious, always meet with punishment, human or +divine, signal or secret. I have done better than the historian, for I +am free. Cromwell here on earth escaped all punishment but that +inflicted by thoughtful men. And on this point there have been divided +schools. Bossuet even showed some consideration for great regicide. +William of Orange, the usurper, Hugues Capet, another usurper, lived +to old age with no more qualms or fears than Henri IV. or Charles I. +The lives of Catherine II. and of Frederick of Prussia would be +conclusive against any kind of moral law, if they were judged by the +twofold aspect of the morality which guides ordinary mortals, and that +which is in use by crowned heads; for, as Napoleon said, for kings and +statesmen there are the lesser and the higher morality. My scenes of +political life are founded on this profound observation. It is not a +law to history, as it is to romance, to make for a beautiful ideal. +History is, or ought to be, what it was; while romance ought to be +"the better world," as was said by Mme. Necker, one of the most +distinguished thinkers of the last century. + +Still, with this noble falsity, romance would be nothing if it were +not true in detail. Walter Scott, obliged as he was to conform to the +ideas of an essentially hypocritical nation, was false to humanity in +his picture of woman, because his models were schismatics. The +Protestant woman has no ideal. She may be chaste, pure, virtuous; but +her unexpansive love will always be as calm and methodical as the +fulfilment of a duty. It might seem as though the Virgin Mary had +chilled the hearts of those sophists who have banished her from heaven +with her treasures of loving kindness. In Protestantism there is no +possible future for the woman who has sinned; while, in the Catholic +Church, the hope of forgiveness makes her sublime. Hence, for the +Protestant writer there is but one Woman, while the Catholic writer +finds a new woman in each new situation. If Walter Scott had been a +Catholic, if he had set himself the task of describing truly the +various phases of society which have successively existed in Scotland, +perhaps the painter of Effie and Alice--the two figures for which he +blamed himself in his later years--might have admitted passion with +its sins and punishments, and the virtues revealed by repentance. +Passion is the sum-total of humanity. Without passion, religion, +history, romance, art, would all be useless. + +Some persons, seeing me collect such a mass of facts and paint them as +they are, with passion for their motive power, have supposed, but +wrongly, that I must belong to the school of Sensualism and +Materialism--two aspects of the same thing--Pantheism. But their +misapprehension was perhaps justified--or inevitable. I do not share +the belief in indefinite progress for society as a whole; I believe in +man's improvement in himself. Those who insist on reading in me the +intention to consider man as a finished creation are strangely +mistaken. _Seraphita_, the doctrine in action of the Christian Buddha, +seems to me an ample answer to this rather heedless accusation. + +In certain fragments of this long work I have tried to popularize the +amazing facts, I may say the marvels, of electricity, which in man is +metamorphosed into an incalculable force; but in what way do the +phenomena of brain and nerves, which prove the existence of an +undiscovered world of psychology, modify the necessary and undoubted +relations of the worlds to God? In what way can they shake the +Catholic dogma? Though irrefutable facts should some day place thought +in the class of fluids which are discerned only by their effects while +their substance evades our senses, even when aided by so many +mechanical means, the result will be the same as when Christopher +Columbus detected that the earth is a sphere, and Galileo demonstrated +its rotation. Our future will be unchanged. The wonders of animal +magnetism, with which I have been familiar since 1820; the beautiful +experiments of Gall, Lavater's successor; all the men who have studied +mind as opticians have studied light--two not dissimilar things--point +to a conclusion in favor of the mystics, the disciples of St. John, +and of those great thinkers who have established the spiritual world +--the sphere in which are revealed the relations of God and man. + +A sure grasp of the purport of this work will make it clear that I +attach to common, daily facts, hidden or patent to the eye, to the +acts of individual lives, and to their causes and principles, the +importance which historians have hitherto ascribed to the events of +public national life. The unknown struggle which goes on in a valley +of the Indre between Mme. de Mortsauf and her passion is perhaps as +great as the most famous of battles (_Le Lys dans la Vallee_). In one +the glory of the victor is at stake; in the other it is heaven. The +misfortunes of the two Birotteaus, the priest and the perfumer, to me +are those of mankind. La Fosseuse (_Medecin de Campagne_) and Mme. +Graslin (_Cure de Village_) are almost the sum-total of woman. We all +suffer thus every day. I have had to do a hundred times what +Richardson did but once. Lovelace has a thousand forms, for social +corruption takes the hues of the medium in which it lives. Clarissa, +on the contrary, the lovely image of impassioned virtue, is drawn in +lines of distracting purity. To create a variety of Virgins it needs a +Raphael. In this respect, perhaps literature must yield to painting. + +Still, I may be allowed to point out how many irreproachable figures +--as regards their virtue--are to be found in the portions of this +work already published: Pierrette Lorrain, Ursule Mirouet, Constance +Birotteau, La Fosseuse, Eugenie Grandet, Marguerite Claes, Pauline de +Villenoix, Madame Jules, Madame de la Chanterie, Eve Chardon, +Mademoiselle d'Esgrignon, Madame Firmiani, Agathe Rouget, Renee de +Maucombe; besides several figures in the middle-distance, who, though +less conspicuous than these, nevertheless, offer the reader an example +of domestic virtue: Joseph Lebas, Genestas, Benassis, Bonnet the cure, +Minoret the doctor, Pillerault, David Sechard, the two Birotteaus, +Chaperon the priest, Judge Popinot, Bourgeat, the Sauviats, the +Tascherons, and many more. Do not all these solve the difficult +literary problem which consists in making a virtuous person +interesting? + +It was no small task to depict the two or three thousand conspicuous +types of a period; for this is, in fact, the number presented to us by +each generation, and which the Human Comedy will require. This crowd +of actors, of characters, this multitude of lives, needed a setting +--if I may be pardoned the expression, a gallery. Hence the very +natural division, as already known, into the Scenes of Private Life, of +Provincial Life, of Parisian, Political, Military, and Country Life. +Under these six heads are classified all the studies of manners which +form the history of society at large, of all its _faits et gestes_, as +our ancestors would have said. These six classes correspond, indeed, +to familiar conceptions. Each has its own sense and meaning, and +answers to an epoch in the life of man. I may repeat here, but very +briefly, what was written by Felix Davin--a young genius snatched from +literature by an early death. After being informed of my plan, he said +that the Scenes of Private Life represented childhood and youth and +their errors, as the Scenes of Provincial Life represented the age of +passion, scheming, self-interest, and ambition. Then the Scenes of +Parisian Life give a picture of the tastes and vice and unbridled +powers which conduce to the habits peculiar to great cities, where the +extremes of good and evil meet. Each of these divisions has its local +color--Paris and the Provinces--a great social antithesis which held +for me immense resources. + +And not man alone, but the principal events of life, fall into classes +by types. There are situations which occur in every life, typical +phases, and this is one of the details I most sought after. I have +tried to give an idea of the different districts of our fine country. +My work has its geography, as it has its genealogy and its families, +its places and things, its persons and their deeds; as it has its +heraldry, its nobles and commonalty, its artisans and peasants, its +politicians and dandies, its army--in short, a whole world of its own. + +After describing social life in these three portions, I had to +delineate certain exceptional lives, which comprehend the interests of +many people, or of everybody, and are in a degree outside the general +law. Hence we have Scenes of Political Life. This vast picture of +society being finished and complete, was it not needful to display it +in its most violent phase, beside itself, as it were, either in +self-defence or for the sake of conquest? Hence the Scenes of Military +Life, as yet the most incomplete portion of my work, but for which +room will be allowed in this edition, that it may form part of it when +done. Finally, the Scenes of Country Life are, in a way, the evening +of this long day, if I may so call the social drama. In that part are +to be found the purest natures, and the application of the great +principles of order, politics, and morality. + +Such is the foundation, full of actors, full of comedies and +tragedies, on which are raised the Philosophical Studies--the second +part of my work, in which the social instrument of all these effects +is displayed, and the ravages of the mind are painted, feeling after +feeling; the first of the series, _The Magic Skin_, to some extent +forms a link between the Philosophical Studies and Studies of Manners, +by a work of almost Oriental fancy, in which life itself is shown in a +mortal struggle with the very element of all passion. + +Besides these, there will be a series of Analytical Studies, of which +I will say nothing, for one only is published as yet--The Physiology +of Marriage. + +In the course of time I purpose writing two more works of this class. +First the Pathology of Social Life, then an Anatomy of Educational +Bodies, and a Monograph on Virtue. + +In looking forward to what remains to be done, my readers will perhaps +echo what my publishers say, "Please God to spare you!" I only ask to +be less tormented by men and things than I have hitherto been since I +began this terrific labor. I have had this in my favor, and I thank +God for it, that the talents of the time, the finest characters and +the truest friends, as noble in their private lives as the former are +in public life, have wrung my hand and said, Courage! + +And why should I not confess that this friendship, and the testimony +here and there of persons unknown to me, have upheld me in my career, +both against myself and against unjust attacks; against the calumny +which has often persecuted me, against discouragement, and against the +too eager hopefulness whose utterances are misinterpreted as those of +overwhelming conceit? I had resolved to display stolid stoicism in the +face of abuse and insults; but on two occasions base slanders have +necessitated a reply. Though the advocates of forgiveness of injuries +may regret that I should have displayed my skill in literary fence, +there are many Christians who are of opinion that we live in times +when it is as well to show sometimes that silence springs from +generosity. + +The vastness of a plan which includes both a history and a criticism +of society, an analysis of its evils, and a discussion of its +principles, authorizes me, I think, in giving to my work the title +under which it now appears--_The Human Comedy_. Is this too ambitious? +Is it not exact? That, when it is complete, the public must pronounce. + + + +PARIS, July 1842 + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Human Comedy: Introductions & +Appendix, by Honore de Balzac + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUMAN COMEDY *** + +***** This file should be named 1968.txt or 1968.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.net/1/9/6/1968/ + +Produced by Dagny, and John Bickers + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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