saved its
pathos from being as irritating as that of the all but idiotic
grandfather in _The Old Curiosity Shop_. But the situation still has a
share of that fatal helpless ineffectiveness which Mr. Arnold so justly
denounced. Of the remaining pair, _La Cousine Bette_ is, I suppose,
again the favourite; but I am not a backer. I have in other places
expressed my opinion that if Valerie Marneffe is part-model[163] of
Becky Sharp, which is not, I believe, absolutely certain, the copy
far--indeed infinitely--exceeds the original, and not least in the facts
that Becky is attractive while Valerie is not, and that there is any
amount of possibility in her. I should not wonder if, some day, a
novelist took it into his head to show Becky as she would have been if
she had had those thousands a year for which, with their accompanying
chances of respectability, she so pathetically sighed. Now Valerie is,
and always must have been, a _catin_, and nothing else. Lisbeth, again,
though I admit her possibility, is not, to me, made quite probable.
Hulot, very possible and probable indeed, does not interest or amuse me,
and the angelic Adeline is good but dull. In fact the book, by its very
power, throws into disastrous eminence that absence of _delightfulness_
which is Balzac's great want, uncompensated by the presence of the
magnificence which is his great resource. _La Peau de Chagrin_ and some
of the smaller things have this relief; _La Cousine Bette_ has not. And
therefore I think that, on the whole, _Le Cousin Pons_ is the better of
the two, though it may seem to some weaker, further "below proof."
Everything in it is possible and probable, and though the comedy is
rather rueful, it is comedy. It is a play; its companion is rather too
much of a sermon.

[Sidenote: Others--the general "scenic" division.]

The "Scenes de la Vie Privee" (to pass to a rapid general survey of the
"Acts" of the Comedy) provide an especially large number of short
stories, almost the only ones of length being _Modeste Mignon_ and
_Beatrix_, a strongly contrasted couple. _Modeste Mignon_ is perhaps one
of the best of Balzac's _second_ best. _Beatrix_, a book of more power,
appeals chiefly to those who may be interested in the fact (which
apparently _is_ the fact) that the book contains, almost more than any
other, figures taken from real people, such as George Sand--the
"Camille" of the novel--and some of those about her. The "Scenes de la
Vie de Province