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Balzac until her early death.

The relation between these two has a sweetness and a purity which are
seldom found. Mme. de Berny gave Balzac money as she would have given
it to a son, and thereby she saved a great soul for literature. But
there was no sickly sentiment between them, and Balzac regarded her
with a noble love which he has expressed in the character of Mme.
Firmiani.

It was immediately after she had lightened his burdens that the real
Balzac comes before us in certain stories which have no equal, and
which are among the most famous that he ever wrote. What could be more
wonderful than his El Verdugo, which gives us a brief horror while
compelling our admiration? What, outside of Balzac himself, could be
more terrible than Gobseck, a frightful study of avarice, containing a
deathbed scene which surpasses in dreadfulness almost anything in
literature? Add to these A Passion in the Desert, The Girl with the
Golden Eyes, The Droll Stories, The Red Inn, and The Magic Skin, and
you have a cluster of masterpieces not to be surpassed.

In the year 1829, when he was just beginning to attain a slight
success, Balzac received a long letter written in a woman's hand. As he
read it, there came to him something very like an inspiration, so full
of understanding were the written words, so full of appreciation and of
sympathy with the best that he had done. This anonymous note pointed
out here and there such defects as are apt to become chronic with a
young author. Balzac was greatly stirred by its keen and sympathetic
criticism. No one before had read his soul so clearly. No one--not even
his devoted sister, Laure de Surville--had judged his work so wisely,
had come so closely to his deepest feeling.

He read the letter over and over, and presently another came, full of
critical appreciation, and of wholesome, tonic, frank, friendly words
of cheer. It was very largely the effect of these letters that roused
Balzac's full powers and made him sure of winning the two great objects
of his first ambition--love and fame--the ideals of the chivalrous,
romantic Frenchman from Caesar's time down to the present day.

Other letters followed, and after a while their authorship was made
known to Balzac. He learned that they had been written by a young
Polish lady, Mme. Evelina Hanska, the wife of a Polish count, whose
health was feeble, and who spent much time in Switzerland because the
climate there agreed with him.

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