udge; for I don't pretend to understand these things myself. I
myself, my friend, buy reputations ready-made, as the Englishman
bought his love affairs.--You are as great as a poet as you are
handsome as a man, my boy," pronounced Dauriat. "Upon my word and
honor (I don't tell you that as a publisher, mind), your sonnets are
magnificent; no sign of effort about them, as is natural when a man
writes with inspiration and verve. You know your craft, in fact, one
of the good points of the new school. Your volume of _Marguerites_ is a
fine book, but there is no business in it, and it is not worth my
while to meddle with anything but a very big affair. In conscience, I
won't take your sonnets. It would be impossible to push them; there is
not enough in the thing to pay the expenses of a big success. You will
not keep to poetry besides; this book of yours will be your first and
last attempt of the kind. You are young; you bring me the everlasting
volume of early verse which every man of letters writes when he leaves
school, he thinks a lot of it at the time, and laughs at it later on.
Lousteau, your friend, has a poem put away somewhere among his old
socks, I'll warrant. Haven't you a poem that you thought a good deal
of once, Lousteau?" inquired Dauriat, with a knowing glance at the
other.

"How should I be writing prose otherwise, eh?" asked Lousteau.

"There, you see! He has never said a word to me about it, for our
friend understands business and the trade," continued Dauriat. "For me
the question is not whether you are a great poet, I know that," he
added, stroking down Lucien's pride; "you have a great deal, a very
great deal of merit; if I were only just starting in business, I
should make the mistake of publishing your book. But in the first
place, my sleeping partners and those at the back of me are cutting
off my supplies; I dropped twenty thousand francs over poetry last
year, and that is enough for them; they will not hear of any more just
now, and they are my masters. Nevertheless, that is not the question.
I admit that you may be a great poet, but will you be a prolific
writer? Will you hatch sonnets regularly? Will you run into ten
volumes? Is there business in it? Of course not. You will be a
delightful prose writer; you have too much sense to spoil your style
with tagging rhymes together. You have a chance to make thirty
thousand francs per annum by writing for the papers, and you will not
exchange that chan