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Similarly, in the Paris of that time or of a little earlier period, I would have considered the day well spent if in the course of it I had seen Victor Hugo with his umbrella, riding on the Imperiale of an omnibus, or the good Dumas exhibiting his woolly pate conspicuously in a boulevard café, or the author of "The Mysteries of Paris" and "The Wandering Jew" posing at a table in the Restaurant de Paris or Bignon's, or the fat figure of M. de Balzac waddling in the direction of a printing house to toil and groan and sweat over the proofs of the latest addition to the "Comedie Humaine."

Later on, he sent Balzac a magnificent inkstand as a present, which the recipient rather ungratefully remarked required palatial surroundings, and was too grand for his use. On October 1st, the happy time at Neufchatel came to an end, as the Hanskis were leaving that day, and Balzac's work awaited him in Paris.

With Hugo, Dumas, De Musset, Balzac, not to mention lesser stars, the author of Indiana and Valentine, although a woman, was acknowledged as worthy to rank.

After December 2nd Paris could not contain a spirit so fiery as Hugo's was in hostility to the new régime and its chief representative. Balzac, whom it would have been a happiness even to look at, was dead. Lamartine promised a visit, but for a time his coming was delayed. By a mischance Alfred de Musset failed to appear when Browning, expecting to meet him, was the guest of M. Buloz.

A few months prior to the production of Vautrin, Balzac, then at the height of his financial difficulties and literary labours, had nevertheless courageously undertaken the defense of a man accused of murder whom he believed to be innocent. This act was in accordance with his conception of his duty as a citizen, and it bore witness to his generosity and sense of justice.

It can scarcely be disputed that an entrance of realism into French literature would have occurred in the second half of the nineteenth century, had there been no Balzac. Some other novelists or writers, themselves reacted upon by the scientific spirit, would have set the example in their own way, if not with the achievement of the author of the Comedy.

John of the Cross; this, the Beatrice of Dante, the Gabriel of Mahomet, the Master Peter of Roger Bacon, the Seraphita of Balzac, the radiant companion of Whitman, and the I of Edward Carpenter. The light would have killed one who had not integrated spiritual light to reflect it. The light of the Illuminati is terrible to eyes filled with evil.

It was not without some considerable profit that Mrs. Follingsbee had read Balzac and Dumas, and had Charlie Ferrola for master of arts in her establishment. The effect of the whole was perfect; it transported one, bodily, back to the times of Montespan and Pompadour, when life was all one glittering upper-crust, and pretty women were never troubled with even the shadow of a duty.

His refusal to shape his story, or any considerable part of it, as a pictorial impression, his desire to keep it all in immediate action, prevents him from making the most of the space at his command; the situation is bound to suffer in consequence. For suppose that Balzac had had to deal with the life of Anna.

An intimacy was formed about this time between Balzac and La Touche, the editor of the Figaro, who, as has been already mentioned, helped him in the prosaic task of nailing up draperies.