.

Sophie seemed to have some of the traits of her grandmother; for the
novelist wrote his sister:

"Sophie has traced out a catechism of what she considers _my
duties_ towards you, just as last year my mother wrote me a
catechism of my duties towards my nieces; it is a sort of cholera
peculiar to our family, to lecture uncles both at home and abroad.
I make fun if it, but all these little things are remarked upon,
which I do not like; then these blank pages make me furious. I
forgive Sophie on account of the _motif_, which is you, and for
all she and Valentine have done for your _fete_. Ah! if my wishes
are ever realized, how I shall enjoy introducing my dear nieces,
both so unspoiled by the devil! I have sung their praises here. I
have said Sophie is a great musician: I add, Valentine is a _man
of letters_, and she is tired with writing three pages."

If certain letters received by Balzac from his family irritated him,
he perhaps unconsciously was making his sister jealous by continually
extolling the young Countess Mniszech:

"She has a genius, as well as a love, for music; if she had not
been an heiress, she would have been a great artiste. If she comes
to Paris in eighteen months or two years, she will take lessons in
thorough bass and composition. It is all she needs as regards
music. She has (without exaggeration) hands the size of a child of
eight years old. These minute, supple, white hands, three of which
I could hold in mine, have an iron power of finger, in the
proportion, like that of Liszt. The keys, not the fingers, bend;
she can compass ten keys by the span and elasticity of her
fingers; this phenomenon must be seen to be believed. Music, her
mother, and her husband: these three words sum up her character.
She is the Fenella of the fireside; the will-o'-wisp of our souls;
our gaiety; the life of the house. When she is not here, the very
walls are conscious of her absence--so much does she brighten them
by her presence. She had never known misfortune; she knows nothing
of annoyance; she is the idol of all who surround her, and she had
the sensibility and goodness of an angel: in one word, she unites
qualities which moralists consider incompatible; it is, however,
only a self-evident fact to all who know her. She is evidently
well informed, without pedantry; she has a delightful _naivete_;
and though long since married, she has still th