ulanger's powerful and strongly
coloured portrait, though only redeemed from coarseness by the intense
concentration of expression and the intellectual light in the
wonderful eyes, was strikingly true to nature, and caught one very
real aspect of the man. Perhaps, however, it was not the one
calculated to work most strongly on the feelings of his absent
lady-love; who, no doubt, poor Balzac hoped, would often make her way
to the spot in the picture gallery where his picture hung in its quaint
frame of black velvet, and would refresh herself with the sight of her
absent friend. When her miniature by Daffinger was sent him, he was
stupefied all day with joy; and he always carried it about with him,
considering it an amulet which brought him good fortune.

He believed in talismans, and had pretty fanciful ideas about being
present to his friends in the sudden flicker of the fire, or the
brightening of a candle-flame. Balzac, the Seer, the believer in
animal magnetism, in somnambulism, in telepathy, the weaver of strange
fancies and impossible daydreams--Balzac with philosophical theories
on the function of thought, and faith in the mystical creed of
Swedenborg--in short, the Balzac of "Louis Lambert" and "Seraphita,"
is not, however, depicted by Boulanger: _he_ can only be found in M.
Rodin's wonderful statue. There the great _voyant_, who, in the
beautiful vision entitled "L'Assomption," saw man and woman perfected
and brought to their highest development, stands in rapt contemplation
and concentration, his head slightly raised, as if listening for the
voice of inspiration, or hearing murmurs of mysteries still
unfathomed.

Somnambulism, in particular, occupied much of Balzac's attention. He
wrote in 1832 to a doctor, M. Chapelain, who evidently shared his
interest in the subject, to ask why medical men had not made use of it
to discover the cause of cholera[*]; and on another occasion, after an
accident to his leg, he sent M. Chapelain, from Aix, two pieces of
flannel which he had worn, and wanted to know from them what caused
the mischief, and why the doctors at their last consultation advised a
blister. Unluckily, we hear no more of this matter, and never have the
satisfaction of learning how much the learned doctor deduced from the
fragments submitted to his inspection. Time after time Balzac mentions
in his correspondence that he has consulted somnambulists when he has
been anxious about the health of the Hanski fa