urs that rise from his magic caldron and shape themselves into human
forms smell unpleasantly of sulphur, or perhaps of Parisian sewers.

The highest poetry, like the noblest morality, is the product of a
thoroughly healthy mind. A diseased tendency in one respect is certain
to make itself manifest in the other. Now Balzac, though he shows some
powers which are unsurpassed or unequalled, possessed a mind which, to
put it gently, was not exactly well regulated. He took a pleasure in
dwelling upon horrors from which a healthy imagination shrinks, and
rejoiced greatly in gloating over the mysteries of iniquity. I do not
say that this makes his work immoral in the ordinary sense. Probably few
people who are likely to read Balzac would be any the worse for the
study. But, from a purely artistic point of view, he is injured by his
morbid tendencies. The highest triumph of style is to say what everybody
has been thinking in such a way as to make it new; the greatest triumph
of art is to make us see the poetical side of the commonplace life
around us. Balzac's ambition was, doubtless, aimed in that direction. He
wished to show that life in Paris or at Tours was as interesting to the
man of real insight as any more ideal region. In a certain sense, he has
accomplished his purpose. He has discovered food for a dark and powerful
imagination in the most commonplace details of daily life. But he falls
short in so far as he is unable to represent things as they are, and has
a taste for impossible horrors. There are tragedies enough all round us
for him who has eyes to see. Balzac is not content with the materials at
hand, or rather he has a love for the more exceptional and hideous
manifestations. Therefore the 'Comedie Humaine,' instead of being an
accurate picture of human life, and appealing to the sympathies of all
human beings, is a collection of monstrosities, whose vices are
unnatural, and whose virtues are rather like their vices. One feels that
there is something narrow and artificial about his work. It is intensely
powerful, but it is not the highest kind of power. He makes the utmost
of the gossip of a club smoking-room, or the scandal of a drawing-room,
or perhaps of a country public-house; but he represents a special phase
of manners, and that not a particularly pleasant one, rather than the
more fundamental and permanent sentiments of mankind. When shall we see
a writer who can be powerful without being spasmodic, and pie