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She was proud of her beautiful complexion, and had a drawing-room hung with pale green satin to show it to the best advantage; while, like her mother, she wrote novels, one of which she called "La Canne de M. de Balzac," after the novelist's famous cane adorned with turquoises.

The time-piece and candelabra were of white marble incrusted with gold; and cashmere covered the single table, while several flower-stands filled up the corners, with their roses and other blooms. This study, which Balzac himself has left us a description of in his novel The Girl with the Golden Eyes, was soon abandoned as a workroom for another more simple and austere, up under the roof.

But let us quit this drawing-room, and turn our steps towards the Rue du Croissant, where the office of "Le Charivari" is to be found. Balzac has described in "Les Illusions Perdues" the offices of these petty newspapers: the passage divided into two equal portions, one of which leads to the editor's room, and the other to the grated counter where the clerk sits to receive subscribers.

Could this influence be durable in its original purity and force, it is impossible to predict the greatness of the results; but, when composition begins, inspiration is already on the decline." The case of Balzac suggests that the sort of genius Shelley had in his thought is the exception rather than the rule.

The Russians were eager to show their admiration of the celebrated French novelist, and Balzac experienced the truth of the adage, that a prophet is not without honour save in his own country.

She spoke of Balzac, whom she had seen but once, of Alfred de Musset, whom she had known well enough to dislike for his morbidity, and of George Sand whom she had known so well that they had dabbled in magic together of which 'neither knew anything at all' in those days; and she ran on, as if there was nobody there to overhear her, 'I used to wonder at and pity the people who sell their souls to the devil, but now I only pity them.

About this time Balzac started the association he called the "Cheval Rouge," which was intended to be a mutual help society among a number of friends, who were to push and praise each other's compositions, and to rise as one man against any one who dared to attack a member of the alliance.

The will to compass self-expression, the will to emerge from darkness to light, from formlessness to form, from nothing to everything this it is that I find in either statue; and this it is in virtue of which the Balzac has unbeknown a brother on the Italian seaboard. Here stands or rather struggles on his pedestal this younger brother, in strange contrast with the scenery about him.

Almost at once difficulties began, difficulties which are inevitable when a genius of the stamp of Balzac is bound by an unfortunate agreement to provide a specified quantity of copy at stated intervals. Balzac could not write to order. "Seraphita," planned to please Madame Hanska, was intended to be a masterpiece such as the world had never seen.

In 1812, Balzac paid his first and impatiently anticipated visit to this spot.