casional
exclusive devotion to it during the throes of composition to which
Balzac gave himself up night and day to an extent that utterly isolated
him from the world for the time being, but steady, systematic, willing
labor,--a labor, I might say, of love, for he never begrudged it,--which
began every morning, when nothing special interfered with it, after a
nine-o'clock breakfast and continued until late in the afternoon. He was
too practical and methodical to work by fits and starts. Generally he
laid down his pen soon after four P.M.; but often he continued writing
till it was time to dress for dinner, which he took either at home or at
the Garrick Club, as the spirit moved him, except when he dined out,
which was not very often,--for, although he was most genial and social
in a quiet way among his intimates, he had no fondness for general
society or large dinner-parties. Yet his town residence, at No. 6 Bolton
Row, was not only at the West End, but in Mayfair, the best part of it;
and, although a bachelor to the end of his days, he kept house. He
afterwards resided at No. 6 Curzon Street, also in Mayfair, and then
took a house at No. 2 Albert Terrace, Knightsbridge, but gave it up not
long before his death, which occurred in Blomfield Terrace, Shepherd's
Bush, a London suburb.

"This capacity, this zest of yours for steady work," I once remarked to
him, "almost equals Sir Walter Scott's. With your encyclopaedic,
classified, and indexed note-books and scrap-books, you are one of the
wonders of literature."

"Well," he replied, "these are the tools of my trade, and the time and
labor I spend on them are well invested." Then he went on to say of
literary composition, "Genius without labor, we all know, will not keep
the pot boiling. But I doubt whether one may not put too much labor into
his work as well as too little, and spend too much time in polishing.
Rough vigor often hits the nail better than the most studied and
polished sentences. It doesn't do to write above the heads or the tastes
of the people. I make it a rule to put a little good and a little bad
into every page I write, and in that way I am likely to suit the taste
of the average reader. The average reader is no fool, neither is he an
embodiment of all the knowledge, wit, and wisdom in the world."

He valued success as a dramatic author more highly than as a novelist,
and was always yearning for some great triumph on the stage. In this
respect he was