The Project Gutenberg EBook of Analytical Studies, by Honore de Balzac

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Title: Analytical Studies

Author: Honore de Balzac

Release Date: July 4, 2005 [EBook #16206]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANALYTICAL STUDIES ***

Produced by Dagny; and John Bickers

ANALYTICAL STUDIES

BY

HONORE DE BALZAC

DEDICATION

Notice the words: _The man of distinction to whom this book is
dedicated_. Need I say: "You are that man."--THE AUTHOR.

The woman who may be induced by the title of this book to open it,
can save herself the trouble; she has already read the work
without knowing it. A man, however malicious he may possibly be,
can never say about a woman as much good or as much evil as they
themselves think. If, in spite of this notice, a woman will
persist in reading the volume, she ought to be prevented by
delicacy from despising the author, from the very moment that he,
forfeiting the praise which most artists welcome, has in a certain
way engraved on the title page of his book the prudent inscription
written on the portal of certain establishments: _Ladies must not
enter_.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
THE PHYSIOLOGY OF MARRIAGE
PETTY TROUBLES OF MARRIED LIFE

INTRODUCTION

The two Analytical Studies, _Physiology of Marriage_ and _Petty
Troubles of Married Life_, belong quite apart from the action of the
_Comedie Humaine_, and can only be included therein by virtue of a
special dispensation on the part of their author, who made for them an
eighth division therein, thus giving them a local habitation and a
name. Although they come far down in the list of titles, their
creation belongs almost to the formative era. Balzac had just shaken
his skirts clear of the immature dust of the _Oeuvres de Jeunesse_,
and by the publication, in 1829, of _The Chouans_, had made his first
real bow to his larger public. In December of that same year appeared
the _Physiology of Marriag