again to
enter the ranks of paid contributors to the daily press, and to comply
with its exigencies. Yet not entirely. His qualities and his defects
alike led him frequently to break from restraint and to follow his own
bent, maugre the complaints of readers, maugre editors' entreaties;
and, even in the final phase of his production, there were some
masterpieces supporting comparison with those of his best period.

At the end of the Thirties, he was again, like Bruce's spider,
renewing his efforts to climb on to the stage. He had three pieces in
hand, _La Gina_, _Richard the Sponge-Heart_, and his _School for
Husbands and Wives_, already mentioned. The last he had now managed to
carry through to its conclusion; and, in February 1839 there seemed to
be some prospect of his getting it played. Pereme, an influential
acquaintance of his in the theatrical world, had persuaded the
Renaissance theatre to accept it on approval, but was less fortunate
with regard to the fifteen thousand francs which Balzac had asked for
on account. The roles were discussed and partially distributed. Henry
Monnier and Frederick Lemaitre were to be chief actors on the men's
side, Mesdames Theodore and Albert on the women's. On the 25th of the
month, the author presented himself with his manuscript before the
reading committee; and, to his intense annoyance and dismay, was
compelled to put it back into his pocket. Either the committee feared
the expense which the representation would have entailed, or else the
elder Dumas, who was one of their most successful suppliers of dramas,
and had recently fallen out with them, must have made up the quarrel
just before Balzac's comedy was read. Whatever the reason was, the
rejection of the piece grievously affected the novelist, who, besides
losing a great deal of valuable time, had spent money to no purpose in
having his comedy printed.

It must be acknowledged that, in dramatic composition, whatever Balzac
had so far done by himself was done grudgingly, and, when possible,
shifted on to other shoulders. Gozlan relates that Lassailly, who went
to Les Jardies and lived there for some little time as a paid
secretary, would be rung up at night, when his employer usually
worked--rung up not once nor twice, but several times, to hear himself
asked whether, in his waking or his dreaming, he had hatched any good
plan; and poor Lassailly would have sorrowfully to avow that his brain
had conceived nothing of any