e is a great, though by no means a faultless, artist." One who read
both ought to have had no doubt as to the coming of something and
somebody extraordinary.

[Sidenote: The short stories.]

Thenceforward Balzac, though hardly ever faultless except in short
stories, was almost always great, and showed what may be called a
diffused greatness, to which there are few parallels in the history of
the novel. Some of the tales are simply wonderful. I cannot think of
any one else, even Merimee, who could have done _La Grande
Breteche_--the story of a lover who, rather than betray his mistress,
allows himself to suffer, without a word, the fate of a nun who has
broken her vows--as Balzac has done it. _La Recherche de l'Absolu_ is
one, and _Le Chef-d'oeuvre Inconnu_ is another, of the greatest known
masterpieces in the world of their kind. _La Fille aux Yeux d'Or_ and
_Une Passion dans le Desert_ have not the least need of their
"indexable" qualities to validate them. In the most opposite styles
_Jesus Christ en Flandre_ and _La Messe de l'Athee_ have their warmest
admirers. In fact it is scarcely too much to say that, in the whole list
of nearer two than one score--as they were published in the old
collection from _Le Bal de Sceaux_ to _Maitre Cornelius_--scarcely any
are bad or insignificant, few mediocre, and not a few equal, or hardly
inferior, to those specially pointed out just now. As so often
happens, the short story estopped Balzac from some of his usual
delinquencies--over-detail, lingering treatment, etc.,--and encouraged
his virtues--intensity, grandeur, and idiosyncratic tone.

[Sidenote: The _Contes Drolatiques_.]

Of his one considerable collection of such stories--the _Contes
Drolatiques_--it is not possible to speak quite so favourably as a
whole; yet the reduction of favour need not be much. Of its greatest
thing, _La Succube_, there have hardly been two opinions among competent
and unprejudiced judges. "Pity and terror" are there well justified of
their manipulator. The sham Old French, if not absolutely "according to
Cocker" (or such substitute for Cocker as may be made and provided by
scholarly authority), is very much more effective than most such things.
Not a few of the stories are good and amusing in themselves, though of
course the votaries of prunes and prism should keep clear of them. The
book has perhaps only one serious fault, that of the inevitable and no
doubt invited suggestion of, and compari