years' time
nothing will be seizable except Monsieur de Balzac's _Shagreen Skin_."

On account of its sensationalism, the _Shagreen Skin_ had a success of
curiosity equal, and, if anything, superior to that of the
_Physiology_. The author, however, had to defend himself against the
charge of copying foreign literature--Hoffman's tales in particular.
One of his correspondents, the Duchess de Castries, who subsequently
flattered him and flirted with him, wrote to him incognito, taking
exception to certain statements he had made in each of his two popular
works. Replying to her, he for the first time spoke of his desire to
develop his fiction into a vast series of volumes destined to make
known to posterity the life of his century.

Great schemes were always to be Balzac's day-dreaming, one chasing the
other in his fancy. They filled his thoughts, and in his heart were
his constant aim, far more than to be loved, for all he asserted of
this last desire. If literature was the one means he resorted to in
his efforts to attain them, this was because every other means
deceived his expectation, and not because he deliberately preferred it
to all others. He owned the fact without reservation. In the case of a
man whose literary achievement was so high, such slighting of letters
has its significance, and is curious. Taken in conjunction with other
evidence furnished by his letters, it proves that genius, though
sometimes clearly the pure, simple moving of a spirit that cannot be
resisted, is also--and perhaps as often--a calculating partnership,
and that the work of art is a compromise. Would Balzac have written
better if his motive had been single? It is not certain.

During these early days of his popularity, a seat in the Chamber of
Deputies was his will o' the wisp. Aided by the _Dilecta's_ friends,
he offered himself as a candidate in two constituencies, Angouleme and
Cambrai, after publishing his pamphlet: _An Inquiry into the Policy of
Two Ministries_. With a view to shining in the future Parliament, he
sharpened his witticisms, rounded his periods, polished his style,
exercised himself in opposing short phrases to others of Ciceronian
length, endeavouring the while to put poetry and observation into a
new subject. At least these things were in his mind, as his
communication to Berthoud of the Cambrai _Gazette_ testified. His
intention was to become an orator, he said. Had he been elected, he
might have become the rival