ie Francaise. "C'est bien assez
d'un immortel dans la famille," he replied to those who
counselled him to stand. Then, turning to his brother, "Je ne
comprends pas pourquoi tu t'es fourre dans cette galere, si
elle est assez grande pour moi, tu dois y etre joliment a
l'etroit." It is difficult to imagine a greater instance of
brotherly pride and admiration, because Paul de Musset was by
no means a nonentity, only from a very early age he had always
merged his individuality in that of Alfred. To some one who
once remarked upon this in my hearing, he answered, "Que
voulez-vous? c'est comme cela: Alfred a eu toujours la moitie
du lit, seulement la moitie etait toujours prise du milieu."]

Throughout these notes, I intend to abstain carefully from literary
judgments. I am not competent to enter into them; but, if I were, I
should still be reluctant to do so in the case of Alfred de Musset, who,
to my knowledge, never questioned the talent of any one. De Musset
improved upon better acquaintance. He was apt to strike one at first as
distant and supercilious. He was neither the one nor the other, simply
very reserved, and at the best of times very sad, not to say melancholy.
It was not affectation, as has been said so often; it was his nature.
The charge of superciliousness arose from his distressing
short-sightedness, which compelled him to stare very hard at people
without the least intention of being offensive.

I have said that Balzac often came, after a spell of hard work, to
recruit his forces with the _veau a la casserole_ of the Cafe de Paris;
I should have added that this was generally in the autumn and winter,
for, at the end of the spring and during the summer, the dinner hour,
seven, found Balzac still a prisoner at home. Few of his acquaintances
and friends ever caught sight of him, they were often in total ignorance
of his whereabouts, and such news as reached them generally came through
Joseph Mery, the poet and novelist, the only one who came across him
during those periods of eclipse. Mery was an inveterate gambler, and
spent night after night at the card-table. He rarely left it before
daybreak. His way lay past the Cafe de Paris, and for four consecutive
mornings he had met Balzac strolling leisurely up and down, dressed in a
pantalon a pieds (trousers not terminating below the ankle, but with
feet in them lik