coveries broadcast, and often
encountered them again in the possession of lesser minds who had
utilized them before he could put them into execution.

In the year of 1833, the novelist's correspondence alludes to several
books which, like others previously spoken of, were never published,
and probably never written. Among these are _The Privilege_, _The
History of a Fortunate Idea_, and the _Catholic Priest_. Meanwhile, he
did add considerably to his _Droll Tales_, the first series of which
appeared in the same twelve months as _Eugenie Grandet_. These stories
--in the style of Boccaccio, and of some of Chaucer's writing--broad,
racy, and somewhat licentious, albeit containing nothing radically
obscene, were meant to illustrate the history of the French language
and French manners from olden to modern days. Only part of the project
was realized. They are told with wit and humour that are nowhere
present to the same degree in the rest of the novelist's work, and in
their colouring, as Taine justly remarks, recall Jordaens' painting
with its vivid carnation tints. At this time the author was occupied
with _Bertha Repentant_ and the _Succubus_, which, however, were
published only three years subsequently.

CHAPTER VI

LETTERS TO "THE STRANGER," 1833, 1834

If Balzac's intimates, careful of his future, had besought him to jot
down in a diary the detailed doings of his every-day life, with a
confession of his thoughts, feelings, and opinions, in fine an
unmasking of himself, he would surely have urged the material
impossibility of his fulfilling such a task, over and above the
labours of Hercules to which his ambition and his necessities bound
him. And yet he performed the miracle unsolicited.

From the day when he quitted Neufchatel to the day when he arrived at
Wierzchownia, on his crowning visit in 1848, he never ceased
chronicling, in a virtually uninterrupted series of letters to Madame
Hanska, closely following each other during most of this long period,
a faithful account of his existence--exception made for its love
episodes--which, having fortunately been preserved, constitutes an
almost complete autobiography of his mature years. When the end of the
correspondence shall have been given to the public, three volumes, at
least, will have been taken up with the record--a record which taxed
his time and strength, indeed overtaxed them, causing him to encroach
unduly