is
composed of seven letters, and seven is most characteristic of
cabalistic numbers. If M. Gozlan's narrative be authentic, Balzac was
right to value this name highly, for he had spent many hours in seeking
for it by a systematic perambulation of the streets of Paris. He was
rather vexed at the discovery that the Marcas of real life was a tailor.
'He deserved a better fate!' said Balzac pathetically; 'but it shall be
my business to immortalise him.'

Balzac returns to this subject so often and so emphatically that one
half believes him to be the victim of his own mystification. Perhaps he
was the one genuine disciple of Mr. Shandy and Slawkenbergius, and
believed sincerely in the occult influence of names and noses. In more
serious matters it is impossible to distinguish the point at which his
feigned belief passes into real superstition; he stimulates conviction
so elaborately, that his sober opinions shade off imperceptibly into
his fanciful dreamings. For a time he was attracted by mesmerism, and in
the story of Ursule Mirouet he labours elaborately to infect his readers
with a belief in what he calls 'magnetism, the favourite science of
Jesus, and one of the powers transmitted to the apostles.' He assumes
his gravest airs in adducing the cases of Cardan, Swedenborg, and a
certain Duke of Montmorency, as though he were a genuine historical
inquirer. He almost adopts the tone of a pious missionary in describing
how his atheist doctor was led by the revelations of a _clairvoyante_ to
study Pascal's 'Pensees' and Bossuet's sublime 'Histoire des
Variations,' though what those works have to do with mesmerism is rather
difficult to see. He relates the mysterious visions caused by the
converted doctor after his death, not less minutely, though more
artistically, than De Foe described the terrible apparition of Mrs.
Veal, and, it must be confessed, his story illustrates with almost equal
force the doctrine, too often forgotten by spiritualists, that ghosts
should not make themselves too common. When once they begin to mix in
general society, they become intolerably prosaic.

The ostentatious belief which is paraded in this instance is turned to
more artistic account in the wonderful story of the 'Peau de Chagrin.'
Balzac there tries as conscientiously as ever to surmount the natural
revolt of our minds against the introduction of the supernatural into
life. The _peau de chagrin_ is the modern substitute for the
old-fashi