The world is again too
strong for him, and, after being accomplice in the most outrageous
crimes, he ends appropriately by hanging himself in prison. Vautrin, as
we have seen, escapes from the fate of his partner because he retains
coolness enough to practise upon the vices of the governing classes.
The world, in short, is composed of three classes--consistent and,
therefore, successful villains; inconsistent and, therefore,
unsuccessful villains; and virtuous persons, who never have a chance of
success, and enjoy the honours of starvation.

The provinces differ from Paris in the nature of the social warfare, but
not in its morality. Passions are directed to meaner objects; they are
narrower, and more intense. The whole of a man's faculties are
concentrated upon one object; and he pursues it for years with
relentless and undeviating ardour. To supplant a rival, to acquire a few
more acres, to gratify jealousy of a superior, he will labour for a
lifetime. The intensity of his hatred supplies his want of intellect; he
is more cunning, if less far-sighted; and in the contest between the
brilliant Parisian and the plodding provincial we generally have an
illustration of the hare and the tortoise. The blind, persistent hatred
gets the better in the long run of the more brilliant, but more
transitory, passion. The lower nature here, too, gets the better of the
higher; and Balzac characteristically delights in the tragedy produced
by genius which falls before cunning, as virtue almost invariably yields
to vice. It is only when the slow provincial obstinacy happens to be on
the side of virtue that stupidity, doubled with virtue, as embodied for
example in two or three French Caleb Balderstons, generally gets the
worst of it. There are exceptions to this general rule. Even Balzac
sometimes relents. A reprieve is granted at the last moment, and the
martyr is unbound from the stake. But those catastrophes are not only
exceptional, but rather annoying. We have been so prepared to look for a
sacrifice that we are disappointed instead of relieved. If Balzac's
readers could be consulted during the last few pages of a novel, I feel
sure that most thumbs would be turned upwards, and the lions allowed to
have their will of the Christians. Perhaps our appetites have been
depraved; but we are not in the cue for a happy conclusion.

I know not whether it was the cause or the consequence of this sentiment
that Balzac was a thorough legitimi