trophe, is much in Balzac's style; but, as a
rule, our English novelists shrink from anything so unpleasant.

Perhaps the most striking example of this method is the 'Pere Goriot.'
The general situation may be described in two words, by saying that
Goriot is the modern King Lear. Mesdames de Restaud and de Nucingen are
the representatives of Regan and Goneril; but the Parisian Lear is not
allowed the consolation of a Cordelia; the cup of misery is measured out
to him drop by drop, and the bitterness of each dose is analysed with
chemical accuracy. We watch the poor old broken-down merchant, who has
impoverished himself to provide his daughters' dowries, and has
gradually stripped himself, first of comfort, and then of the
necessaries of life to satisfy the demands of their folly and luxury,
as we might watch a man clinging to the edge of a cliff and gradually
dropping lower and lower, catching feebly at every point of support till
his strength is exhausted, and the inevitable catastrophe follows. The
daughters, allowed to retain some fragments of good feeling and not
quite irredeemably hateful, are gradually yielding to the demoralising
influence of a heartless vanity. They yield, it is true, pretty
completely at last; but their wickedness seems to reveal the influence
of a vague but omnipotent power of evil in the background. There is not
a more characteristic scene in Balzac than that in which Rastignac, the
lover of Madame de Nucingen, overhears the conversation between the
father in his wretched garret and the modern Goneril and Regan. A gleam
of good fortune has just encouraged old Goriot to anticipate an escape
from his troubles. On the morning of the day of expected release Madame
Goneril de Nucingen rushes up to her father's garret to explain to him
that her husband, the rich banker, having engaged all his funds in some
diabolical financial intrigues, refuses to allow her the use of her
fortune; whilst, owing to her own misconduct, she is afraid to appeal to
the law. They have a hideous tacit compact, according to which the wife
enjoys full domestic liberty, whilst the husband may use her fortune to
carry out his dishonest plots. She begs her father to examine the facts
in the light of his financial experience, though the examination must be
deferred, that she may not look ill with the excitement when she meets
her lover at the ball. As the poor father is tormenting his brains,
Madame Regan de Restaud appears in