ways Balzac and Evelina Hanska were mated by nature. Whether
they were fully mated the facts of their lives must demonstrate. For the
present, the novelist plunged into a whirl of literary labor, toiling as
few ever toiled--constructing several novels at the same time, visiting
all the haunts of the French capital, so that he might observe and
understand every type of human being, and then hurling himself like a
giant at his work.

He had a curious practise of reading proofs. These would come to him in
enormous sheets, printed on special paper, and with wide margins for his
corrections. An immense table stood in the midst of his study, and upon
the top he would spread out the proofs as if they were vast maps. Then,
removing most of his outer garments, he would lie, face down, upon the
proof-sheets, with a gigantic pencil, such as Bismarck subsequently used
to wield. Thus disposed, he would go over the proofs.

Hardly anything that he had written seemed to suit him when he saw it
in print. He changed and kept changing, obliterating what he disliked,
writing in new sentences, revising others, and adding whole pages in the
margins, until perhaps he had practically made a new book. This process
was repeated several times; and how expensive it was may be judged from
the fact that his bill for "author's proof corrections" was sometimes
more than the publishers had agreed to pay him for the completed volume.

Sometimes, again, he would begin writing in the afternoon, and continue
until dawn. Then, weary, aching in every bone, and with throbbing head,
he would rise and turn to fall upon his couch after his eighteen hours
of steady toil. But the memory of Evelina Hanska always came to him;
and with half-numbed fingers he would seize his pen, and forget his
weariness in the pleasure of writing to the dark-eyed woman who drew him
to her like a magnet.

These are very curious letters that Balzac wrote to Mme. Hanska. He
literally told her everything about himself. Not only were there long
passages instinct with tenderness, and with his love for her; but he
also gave her the most minute account of everything that occurred, and
that might interest her. Thus he detailed at length his mode of living,
the clothes he wore, the people whom he met, his trouble with his
creditors, the accounts of his income and outgo. One might think that
this was egotism on his part; but it was more than that. It was a strong
belief that everything whi