ut typographical
separation of the speeches, the case is just the other way. Moreover,
and this is still more noteworthy, it is not by what his characters do
say that we remember them. The situation perhaps most of all; the
character itself very often; the story sometimes (but of that more
presently)--these are the things for and by which we remember Balzac and
the vast army of his creations; while sometimes it is not even for any
of these things, but for "interiors," "business," and the like. When one
thinks of single points in him, it is scarcely ever of such things as
the "He has got his discharge, by----!" of Dickens; as the "Adsum" of
Thackeray; as the "Trop lourd!" of Porthos' last agony; as the longer
but hardly less quintessenced malediction of Habakkuk Mucklewrath on
Claverhouse. It is of Eugenie Grandet shrinking in automatic repulsion
from the little bench as she reads her cousin's letter; of Henri de
Marsay's cigar (his enjoyment of it, that is to say, for his words are
quite commonplace) as he leaves "la Fille aux Yeux d'Or"; of the lover
allowing himself to be built up in "La Grande Breteche." Observe that
there is not the slightest necessity to apportion the excellence implied
in these different kinds of reminiscence; as a matter of fact, each way
of fastening the interest and the appreciation of the reader is
indifferently good.[171] But the distinction remains.

[Sidenote: And of the "story" interest.]

There is another point on which, though no good critic can miss it, some
critics seem to dislike dwelling; and this is that, though Balzac's
separate situations, as has just been said, are arresting in the highest
degree, it is often distinctly difficult to read him "for the story."
Even M. Brunetiere lets slip an admission that "interest" of the
ordinary kind is not exactly Balzac's forte; while another admirer of
his grants freely that his _affabulation_ is weak. Once more, we need
not and must not make too much of this; but it is important that it
should not be forgotten, and the extreme Balzacian is sometimes apt to
forget it. That it comes sometimes from Balzac's mania for rehandling
and reshaping--that he has actually, like the hero of what is to some
his most unforgettable short story, daubed the masterpiece into a
blur--is certain. But it probably comes more often, and is much more
interesting as coming, from want of co-ordination between the observing
and the imagining faculties which are (as H