beggars, men of fortune, and journalists, and goes about committing the
most inconceivable crimes without the possibility of discovery, becomes
simply ludicrous. Balzac, as usual, labours to reconcile our minds to
the absurdity; but the effort is beyond his powers. The amazing disease
which he invents for the benefit of the villains in the 'Cousine Bette'
can only be accepted as a broad joke. At times, as in the story of the
'Grande Breteche,' where the lover is bricked up by the husband in the
presence of the wife, he reminds us of Edgar Poe's worst extravagances.
There is, indeed, this much to be said for Balzac in comparison with the
more recent school, who have turned to account all the most refined
methods of breaking the ten commandments and the criminal code; the
fault of the so-called sensation writer is, not that he deals in murder,
bigamy, or adultery--every great writer likes to use powerful
situations--but that he relies upon our interest in startling crimes to
distract our attention from feebly-drawn characters and conventional
details. Balzac does not often fall into that weakness. If his criminals
are frequently of the most outrageous kind, and indulge even in
practices unmentionable, the crime is intended at least to be of
secondary interest. He tries to fix our attention on the passions by
which they are caused, and to attract us chiefly by the legitimate
method of analysing human nature--even, it must be confessed, in some of
its most abnormal manifestations. Macbeth is not interesting because he
commits half-a-dozen murders; but the murders are interesting because
they are committed by Macbeth. We may generally say as much for Balzac's
villains; and it is the only justification for a free use of blood and
brutality. In applying these remarks, we come to the real secret of
Balzac's power, which will demand a fuller consideration.

It is common to say of all great novelists, and of Balzac in particular,
that they display a wonderful 'knowledge of the human heart.' The chief
objection to the phrase is that such knowledge does not exist. Nobody
has as yet found his way through the complexities of that intricate
machine, and described the springs and balances by which its movement is
originated and controlled. Men of vivid imagination are in some respects
less competent for such a work than their neighbours. They have not the
cool, hard, and steady hand required for psychological dissection.
Balzac gave a q