oing so? The man who could at will quit his own
personality, and invest himself with that of another; who would follow
a workman and his wife on their way home at night from a music-hall,
and listen to their discussions on domestic matters till he imbibed
their life, felt their ragged clothing on his back, and their desires
and wants in his soul,--how could he find life dull, or the most
commonplace individual uninteresting?

In dress Balzac was habitually careless. He would rush to the
printer's office, after twelve hours of hard work, with his hat drawn
over his eyes, his hands thrust into shabby gloves, and his feet in
shoes with high sides, worn over loose trousers, which were pleated at
the waist and held down with straps. Even in society he took no
trouble about his appearance, and Lamartine describes him as looking,
in the salon of Madame de Girardin, like a schoolboy who has outgrown
his clothes. Only for a short time, which he describes with glee in
his letters to Madame Hanska, did he pose as a man of fashion. Then he
wore a magnificent white waistcoat, and a blue coat with gold buttons;
carried the famous cane, with a knob studded with turquoises,
celebrated in Madame de Girardin's story, "La Canne de Monsieur de
Balzac"; and drove in a tilbury, behind a high-stepping horse, with a
tiny tiger, whom he christened Anchise, perched on the back seat. This
phase was quickly over, the horses were sold, and Balzac appeared no
more in the box reserved for dandies at the Opera. Of the fashionable
outfit, the only property left was the microscopic groom--an orphan,
of whom Balzac took the greatest care, and whom he visited daily
during the boy's last illness, a year or two after. Thenceforward he
reverted to his usual indifference about appearances, his only vanity
being the spotless cleanliness of his working costume--a loose
dressing-gown of white flannel or cashmere, made like the habit of a
Benedictine monk, which was kept in round the waist by a silk girdle,
and was always scrupulously guarded from ink-stains.

Naive as a child, anxious for sympathy, frankly delighted with his own
masterpieces, yet modest in a fashion peculiar to himself, Balzac gave
a dominant impression of kindliness and bonhomie, which overshadowed
even the idea of intellect. To his friends he is not in the first
place the author of the "Comedie Humaine," designed, as George Sand
rather grandiloquently puts it, to be "an almost universal exami