should have to shut up shop; I should pass my time very
agreeably no doubt, but the conversations would cost too much. I am
not rich enough yet to listen to all the monologues of self-conceit.
Nobody does, except in classical tragedies on the stage."

The terrible Dauriat's gorgeous raiment seemed in the provincial
poet's eyes to add force to the man's remorseless logic.

"What is it about?" he continued, addressing Lucien's protector.

"It is a volume of magnificent poetry."

At that word, Dauriat turned to Gabusson with a gesture worthy of
Talma.

"Gabusson, my friend," he said, "from this day forward, when anybody
begins to talk of works in manuscript here--Do you hear that, all of
you?" he broke in upon himself; and three assistants at once emerged
from among the piles of books at the sound of their employer's
wrathful voice. "If anybody comes here with manuscripts," he
continued, looking at the finger-nails of a well-kept hand, "ask him
whether it is poetry or prose; and if he says poetry, show him the
door at once. Verses mean reverses in the booktrade."

"Bravo! well put, Dauriat," cried the chorus of journalists.

"It is true!" cried the bookseller, striding about his shop with
Lucien's manuscript in his hand. "You have no idea, gentlemen, of the
amount of harm that Byron, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Casimir Delavigne,
Canalis, and Beranger have done by their success. The fame of them has
brought down an invasion of barbarians upon us. I know _this_: there
are a thousand volumes of manuscript poetry going the round of the
publishers at this moment, things that nobody can make head nor tail
of, stories in verse that begin in the middle, like _The Corsair_ and
_Lara_. They set up to be original, forsooth, and indulge in stanzas
that nobody can understand, and descriptive poetry after the pattern
of the younger men who discovered Delille, and imagine that they are
doing something new. Poets have been swarming like cockchafers for two
years past. I have lost twenty thousand francs through poetry in the
last twelvemonth. You ask Gabusson! There may be immortal poets
somewhere in the world; I know of some that are blooming and rosy, and
have no beards on their chins as yet," he continued, looking at
Lucien; "but in the trade, young man, there are only four poets
--Beranger, Casimir Delavigne, Lamartine, and Victor Hugo; as for
Canalis--he is a poet made by sheer force of writing him up."

Lucien felt that he lac