same
incompleteness that he has described in his best-known book. The
companion to whom he clung in his later years was neither a
light-minded creature like Miss Beadnell, nor an undeveloped,
high-tempered woman like the one he married, nor a mere domestic,
friendly creature like Georgina Hogarth.

Ought we to venture upon a quest which shall solve this mystery in the
life of Charles Dickens! In his last will and testament, drawn up and
signed by him about a year before his death, the first paragraph reads
as follows:

I, Charles Dickens, of Gadshill Place, Higham, in the county of Kent,
hereby revoke all my former wills and codicils and declare this to be
my last will and testament. I give the sum of one thousand pounds, free
of legacy duty, to Miss Ellen Lawless Ternan, late of Houghton Place,
Ampthill Square, in the county of Middlesex.

In connection with this, read Mr. John Bigelow's careless jottings made
some fifteen years before. Remember the Miss "Teman," about whose name
he was not quite certain; the Hogarth sisters' dislike of her; and the
mysterious figure in the background of the novelist's later life. Then
consider the first bequest in his will, which leaves a substantial sum
to one who was neither a relative nor a subordinate, but--may we
assume--more than an ordinary friend?

HONORE DE BALZAC AND EVELINA HANSKA

I remember once, when editing an elaborate work on literature, that the
publisher called me into his private office. After the door was closed,
he spoke in tones of suppressed emotion.

"Why is it," said he, "that you have such a lack of proportion? In the
selection you have made I find that only two pages are given to George
P. Morris, while you haven't given E. P. Roe any space at all! Yet,
look here--you've blocked out fifty pages for Balzac, who was nothing
but an immoral Frenchman!"

I adjusted this difficulty, somehow or other--I do not just remember
how--and began to think that, after all, this publisher's view of
things was probably that of the English and American public. It is
strange that so many biographies and so many appreciations of the
greatest novelist who ever lived should still have left him, in the
eyes of the reading public, little more than "an immoral Frenchman."

"In Balzac," said Taine, "there was a money-broker, an archeologist, an
architect, an upholsterer, a tailor, an old-clothes dealer, a
journeyman apprentice, a physician, and a notary." Balzac wa