" are richer in "magnums." _Eugenie Grandet_ is here,
with a sort of companion, cheerfuller generally, in _Ursule Mirouet_.
The shorter stories are grouped under the titles of _Les Parisiens en
Province_ (with the first appearance of _Gaudissart_) and _Les
Rivalites_. _Le Lys dans la Vallee_ (which one is sometimes anxiously
begged to distinguish from "the lily _of_ the valley," otherwise
_muguet_) holds, for some, an almost entirely unique place in Balzac's
work, or one shared only in part by _Memoires de Deux Jeunes Mariees_. I
have never, I think, cared much for either. But there is more strength
in two pairs of volumes which contain some of the author's
masterpieces--_Les Celibataires_ with _Pierrette_, _Le Cure de Tours_,
and the powerful, if not particularly pleasant, _Un Menage de
Garcon_;[164] and _Illusions Perdues_, running up well with _Un Grand
Homme de Province a Paris_ and the semi-idyllic _Eve et David_.

But I suppose the "Scenes of Parisian Life" seem to be the citadel to
most people. Here are three of the four books specially selected above,
_Le Pere Goriot_ and both the constituents of _Les Parents Pauvres_.
Here are the _Splendeurs et Miseres des Courtisanes_, which some rank
among the very first; not a few short stories in the volumes taking
their titles from _La Derniere Incarnation de Vautrin_ and _La Maison
Nucingen_; with _Cesar Birotteau_ (_Balzac on Bankruptcy_, as it has
been profanely called) and the celebrated _Histoire des Treize_.

This last, I confess frankly, has always bored me, even though the
volume contains _La Fille aux Yeux d'Or_. The idea of a secret society
in Society itself was not new; it was much more worthy of Sue or Soulie
than of Balzac, and it does not seem to me to have been interestingly
worked out. But perhaps this is due to my perverse and elsewhere
confessed objection to crime and conspiracy novels generally.

Neither have I ever cared much for the group of "Scenes de la Vie
Politique," ranging from _Une Tenebreuse Affaire_ to _Le Depute
d'Arcis_, the last being not entirely Balzac's own. The single volume,
"Scenes de la Vie Militaire," consisting merely of _Les Chouans_ and
_Une Passion dans le Desert_, is much better, and the "Scenes de la Vie
de Campagne" reach a high level with _Le Medecin de Campagne_, _Le Cure
de Village_, and the late, grim, but very noteworthy _Les Paysans_.

None, however, of these sometimes rather arbitrary groups of Balzac's
contains su