wyer's office. This Balzac could not endure, and he very shortly
betook himself to literature, suffering very considerable hardships. The
task he attempted was fiction, and his experience in it was unique. For
years he wrote steadily, and published dozens of volumes, not merely
without attaining success, but without deserving any. But few of these
are ever read now, and when they are opened it is out of mere curiosity,
a curiosity which meets with but little return. Yet Balzac continued, in
spite of hardship and of ill success, to work on, and in his thirtieth
year he made his first mark with _Les Derniers Chouans_, a historical
novel, which, if not of great excellence, at least shows a peculiar and
decided talent. From this time forward he worked with spirit and success
in his own manner, and in twenty years produced the vast collection
which he himself termed _La Comedie Humaine_, the individual novels
being often connected by community of personages, and always by the
peculiar fashion of analytical display of character which from them is
identified with Balzac's name. The most successful of these are
concerned with Parisian life, and perhaps the most powerful of all are
_Le Pere Goriot_, _Eugenie Grandet_, _La Cousine Bette_, _La Peau de
Chagrin_, _La Recherche de l'Absolu_, _Seraphita_. The last is the best
piece of mere writing that Balzac has produced. He had also a wonderful
faculty for short tales (_Le Chef-d'oeuvre Inconnu_, _Une Passion dans
le Desert_, etc.). He tried the theatre, but failed. Notwithstanding
Balzac's untiring energy (he would often work for weeks together with
the briefest intervals of sleep) and the popularity of his books, he was
always in pecuniary difficulties. These were caused partly by his mania
for speculation, and partly by his singular habits of composition. He
would write a novel in short compass, have it printed, then enlarge the
printed sheets with corrections, and repeat this process again and again
until the expenses of the mere printing swallowed up great part of the
profits of the work. At last he obtained wealth, and, as it seemed, a
prospect of happiness. In 1850 he married Madame Hanska, a rich Polish
lady, to whom he had been attached for many years. He had prepared for a
life of opulent ease at Paris with his wife; but a few months after his
marriage he died of heart disease. Balzac is in a way the greatest of
French novelists, because he is the most entirely singular and o