" only. There were cakes and ale; and the cakes did not
always give internal pains, nor the ale a bad headache. As even Hazlitt
(who has been selected, not without reason, as in many ways like Beyle)
said of himself on his death-bed, rather to some folks' surprise though
not to mine, most of the characters "had a happy life," though the
happiness might be chequered: and some of them were "good." It is
scarcely an exaggeration to say that in Beyle's books happiness does not
exist, and virtue has hardly a place. There are some characters who may
be said to be neutral or "on the line"; they may be not definitely
unhappy or definitely bad. But this is about as far as he ever goes in
that direction. And accordingly he and his followers have the fault of
one-sidedness; they may (he did) see life steadily, but they do not see
it whole. There is no need to preach a sermon on the text: in this book
there is full need to record the fact.[146]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Balzac--conditions of the present dealing.]

In dealing with Beyle's greater companion here there are certain
things--not exactly difficulties, but circumstances conditioning the
treatment--which should be stated. That it is well to know something
about your subject has been an accepted doctrine with all save very
young persons, idle paradoxers, and (according to Sir Walter Scott) the
Scottish Court of Session in former days.[147] That it is also well not
to know too much about it has sometimes been maintained, without any
idleness in either sense of the word; the excess being thought likely to
cause weariness, "staleness," and absence of interest. If this were
necessarily so, it might be better for the writer once more to leave
this part of the chapter (since at least the heading of it could not
possibly be omitted in the history) a blank or a constellation of
asterisks in Sternian fashion. For it has fallen to his lot to translate
one whole novel of Balzac's,[148] to edit a translation of the entire
_Comedie_,[149] superintending some of the volumes in narrow detail, and
studying each in short, but (intentionally at least) thorough
_Introductions_, with a very elaborate preface-study of the whole; to
read all Balzac's rather voluminous miscellanea from the early
novel-attempts to posthumous things, including letters; and, finally, to
discuss the subject once more, with the aid or burden of many previous
commentaries, in a long _Review