tion produced within this and
the next twelve months, added most to his notoriety, though inferior
to such stories as the _House of the Tennis-playing Cat_, and even to
the _Sceaux Ball_ in the more proper qualities of the novel.

The _Shagreen Skin_ is the adventure of a young man who, after sowing
his wild oats and losing his last crown at the gaming table, goes to
end his troubles in the river, but is prevented from carrying out his
intention by being fortuitously presented with a piece of shagreen
skin, which has the marvellous property of gratifying its possessor's
every wish, yet, meanwhile, shrinks with each gratification, and in
the same proportion curtails its possessor's life. On this warp of
fairy tale, the author weaves a woof of romance and reality most oddly
blended. The imitations of predecessors are numerous. The style is
turgid, the thought is shallow, the sentiment is exaggerated. But very
little of the sober characterization soon to be manifested in other
books is displayed in this one. The best that can be said is that the
thing has the same cleverness as the _Physiology_, with here and there
indications--and clear ones--of the novelist's later power. He himself
grossly overestimated it, as, indeed, he overestimated not a few of
his poorer productions--maybe because they cost him greater toil than
his masterpieces, which generally, after long, unconscious gestation,
issued rapidly and painless from him.

An amusing expression of this self-praise has come down to us in the
puff he composed on the occasion of a reprint of the _Shagreen Skin_
by Gosselin in 1832. "The _Philosophic Tales_ of Monsieur de Balzac,"
it announced, "have appeared this week. The _Shagreen Skin_ is judged
as the admirable novels of Anne Radcliffe were judged. Such things
escape annalists and commentators. The eager reader lays hold of these
books. They bring sleeplessness into the mansions of the rich and into
the garret of the poet; they animate the village. In winter they give
a livelier reflection to the sparkling log, great privileges to the
story-teller. It is nature, in sooth, who creates story-tellers.
Vainly are you a learned, grave writer, if you have not been born a
story-teller, and you will never obtain the popularity of the
_Mysteries of Udolpho_ and the _Shagreen Skin_, the _Arabian Nights_,
and Monsieur de Balzac. I have somewhere read that God created Adam,
the nomenclator, saying to him: You are the story-telle