s presence in the field equal to forty thousand men in the
balance."

* * * * *

As Balzac emerged out of boyhood into man's estate he seemed to have
just one woman friend, and this was his grandmother. He didn't seem to
care for much more. With her he played cards, and she used to allow him
to win small sums of money. With this money he bought books--always
books.

He had great physical strength, but was beautifully awkward. The only
time he ever attempted to dance he slipped and fell, to the great
amusement of the company. He fled without asking the dancing-master to
refund his tuition.

He was morbidly afraid of young women, and as fear and hate are one, he
hated women, "because they had no ideas," he said. His head was stuffed
with facts, and his one amusement was attending the free lectures at the
Sorbonne. Here he immersed himself with data about every conceivable
subject, made infinite notebooks, and sought vainly for some one with
whom he could talk it all over.

In the absence of a wise companion with whom he could converse, he
undertook the education of his brother Henry, who was not exactly a
prodigy and could not get along at school. Great people are teachers
through necessity, for it is only in explaining the matter to another
that we make it clear to ourselves. Not finding enough to do in teaching
his brother, Balzac advertised to tutor boys who were backward in their
studies.

His first response came from Madame De Berney, who had a boy whom the
teachers could not control.

That is the way: we buy our tickets to one place and Fate puts us off at
another! "Put me off at Buffalo," we say, and in the morning we find
ourselves on the platform at Rochester.

Madame De Berney was the mother of nine, and she was just twenty-two
years older than Balzac. The son she wished to have tutored was weak in
body and not strong in mind. He was in his twentieth year, within a year
of the same age as Balzac.

Balzac made a companion of the youth, treating him as an equal; and by
his bubbling good-nature and eager, hungry desire to know, inspired his
pupil with somewhat of his own enthusiasm.

And in winning the pupil, of course he caught the sympathetic interest
of the mother. No love-affair had ever come to Balzac--women had no
minds: all they could do was to dance!

Madame De Berney was old enough to put Balzac at his ease. She it was
who discovered him--no De Berney, no Balza