nd when he admits us to a glimpse of his
domestic economy, we usually find it to be of a very meagre pattern. He
writes to his sister in 1827 that he has not the means either to pay the
postage of letters or to use omnibuses, and that he goes out as little
as possible, so as not to wear out his clothes. In 1829, however, we
find him in correspondence with a duchess, Mme. d'Abrantes, the widow of
Junot, Napoleon's rough marshal, and author of those voluminous memoirs
upon the imperial court which it was the fashion to read in the early
part of the century. The Duchess d'Abrantes wrote bad novels, like
Balzac himself at this period, and the two became good friends.

The year 1830 was the turning point in Balzac's career. Renown, to which
he had begun to lay siege in Paris in 1820, now at last began to show
symptoms of self-surrender. Yet one of the strongest expressions of
discontent and despair in the pages before us belongs to this brighter
moment. It is also one of the finest passages:

Sacredieu, my good friend, I believe that literature, in the
day we live in, is no better than the trade of a woman of the
town, who prostitutes herself for a dollar. It leads to
nothing. I have an itch to go off and wander and explore, make
of my life a drama, risk my life; for, as for a few miserable
years more or less!... Oh, when one looks at these great skies
of a beautiful night, one is ready to unbutton----

But the modesty of the English tongue forbids us to translate the rest
of the phrase. Dean Swift might have related how Balzac wished to
express his contempt for all the royalties of the earth. Now that he is
in the country, he goes on:

I have been seeing real splendors, such as fine, sound fruit
and gilded insects; I have been quite turning philosopher, and
if I happen to tread upon an anthill, I say, like that immortal
Bonaparte, "These creatures are men: what is it to Saturn, or
Venus, or the North Star?" And then my philosopher comes down
to scribble "items" for a newspaper. _Proh pudor!_ And so it
seems to me that the ocean, a brig, and an English vessel to
sink, if you must sink yourself to do it, are rather better
than a writing-desk, a pen, and the Rue St. Denis.

But Balzac was fastened to the writing desk. In 1831 he tells one of his
correspondents that he is working fifteen or sixteen hours a day. Later,
in 1837, he describes him