Great Mogul with a magical ring, or obtaining
rubies and emeralds from a rich Dutchman. The two apparently
incompatible sides to Balzac's character are difficult to reconcile.
On some occasions he appears as the keen business man, who studies
facts in their logical sequence, and has the power of drawing up legal
documents with no necessary point omitted. The masterly Code which he
composed for the use of the "Societe des Gens-de-Lettres" is an
example of this faculty. At other times we are astonished to find that
the great writer is a credulous believer in impossibilities, and a
follower of strange superstitions. A similar paradox may be found in
his books, where, side by side with a truth and occasional brutality
which makes him in some respects the forerunner of the realists, we
find a wealth of imagination and insistence on the power of the higher
emotions, which are completely alien to the school of Flaubert and
Zola.

Perhaps in his own dictum, that genius is never quite sane, gives a
partial explanation of many of his fantastic schemes. The question of
money was his great preoccupation and anxiety, and possibly his
pecuniary difficulties, and the strain of the heavy chain of debt he
dragged after him, constantly adding to its weight by some fresh
extravagance, had affected his mind on this one point. Marriage with
poverty he could not conceive; and, as he was intensely affectionate,
he longed for a home and womanly companionship. "Is there no woman in
the world for me?" he cried despairingly; but in this, as in
everything else, he required so much, that it was difficult to find
any one who would, in his eyes, be worthy to become Madame Honore de
Balzac. His wife must be no ordinary woman; in addition to birth and
wealth, she must possess youth, beauty, and high intellectual gifts;
and one great difficulty was, that the lady endowed with this
combination of excellencies would naturally require some winning, and
Balzac had no time to woo. However, it was absolutely necessary that
his married life should be one of luxury and magnificence, beautiful
surroundings being indispensable to his scheme of existence, "Il
faut," he said, "que l'artiste mene une vie splendide." Therefore,
till the right lady was found, Balzac toiled unceasingly; and when in
Madame Hanska the personification of his ideal at last appeared, he
redoubled his efforts, till overwork, and his longing for her, caused
the decay of his physical powers,