t of photographs, with letterpress
descriptions at intervals. Or we may compare it to one of those novels
of real life, so strange to the English mind, in which a French
indictment sums up the whole previous history of the persons accused,
accumulates every possible bit of information which may or may not throw
light upon the facts, and diverges from the point, as English lawyers
would imagine, into the most irrelevant considerations.

Balzac, it is plain, differs widely from our English authors, who
generally slightly despise their own art, and think that, in providing
amusement for our idle hours, they are rather derogating from their
dignity. Instead of claiming our attention as a right, they try to
entice us into interest by every possible artifice: they give us
exciting glimpses of horrors to come; they are restlessly anxious to get
their stories well under way. Balzac is far more confident in his
position. He never doubts that we shall be willing to study his works
with the seriousness due to a scientific treatise. And occasionally,
when he is seized by a sudden and most deplorable fit of morality, he
becomes as dull as a sermon. The gravity with which he sets before us
all the benevolent schemes of the _medecin de campagne_, and describes
the whole charitable machinery of the district, makes his performance as
dismal as a gigantic religious tract. But when, in his happier and
wickeder moods, he turns this amazing capacity of graphic description to
its true account, the power of his method makes itself manifest. Every
bit of elaborate geographical and financial information has its meaning,
and tells with accumulated force on the final result. I may instance,
for example, the descriptions of Paris, which form the indispensable
background to the majority of his stories, and contribute in no
inconsiderable share to their tragic effect. Balzac had to deal with the
Paris of the Restoration, full of strange tortuous streets and
picturesque corners, of swinging lanterns and defective drainage; the
Paris which inevitably suggested barricades and street massacres, and
was impregnated to the core with old historical associations. It had not
yet lowered itself to the comprehension of New Yorkers, and still
offered such scenery as Gustave Dore has caught in his wonderful
illustrations of the 'Contes Drolatiques.' Its mysterious and not
over-cleanly charm lives in the pages of Balzac, and harmonises with the
strange society wh