“ We feel the divine destiny of that intellect which has traversed earth to suffer and be purified. So great a genius in his life cannot but be a great spirit hereafter."
In any survey of Balzac's work it is well to consider first what he tried to do. He explains this in the preface to his novels collected under the title La Comédie Humaine. He says his thought was to do for human nature what had recently been done for zoölogy — to show that all society was bound together by a unity of composition, diversified by evolution in varied environments, so that there were species of men as of animals. ”

“ In thought, the child was a man; in action the man was a child, capricious and prodigal, full of schemes that made others rich and kept him poor: restless, passionate, morbid sometimes, especially in the hope deferred of his unfortunate relation to Madame Hanska, but never forfeiting sympathy, because always frank and almost childlike in his broad humanity. There was something awesome in the intensity with which he lived out his fifty years. Hugo expressed this when he said at his grave in Père Lachaise that "such coffins proclaim immortality. ”

“ He would let society tell its own story. He would be its secretary, draw up an inventory of its virtues and vices, gather the facts of its passions, compose types for it by uniting homogeneous natures, and so produce a history of manners from the point of view of a conservative, a Christian, and a monarchist, who knew through friends the Old Régime and the Republic, and had lived under the Empire, the Bourbons, and the democratic monarchy of July. ”

“ He is embarrassed at once by his wealth of ideas and of words. At his best his style is admirable, but it often staggers and occasionally falls under over-elaboration. In construction the stories lack proportion, but in character-drawing he stands next to Shakespeare. Here are the money-grubbers and the money-spenders, studied realistically and in symbolic types; cynics who mock the pleasures they pursue; parasites of social disease; fresh young girls ”

“ The years 1845 and 1846 produced only trivial work; but he was working on four great novels that were to crown his genius, La Cousine Bette, Cousin Pons, Les Splendeurs et Misères des Courtisanes, and L'Envers de l'Histoire Contemporaine, that was to close the Human Comedy with its noblest conception of Christian womanhood. Sickness made his last years unfruitful; and his posthumous Député d'Arcis is largely by his literary executor, Charles Ribou. Balzac's attempts in drama, except possibly Mercadet (first acted in 1831) , are not significant. ”

“ For abstracts of plots consult Barrière, L'Œuvre de Balzac (Paris, 1890) ; for criticism, Louvenjoul, La Genèse d'un roman de Balzac: Les Paysans (Paris, 1901) ; the essays of Taine, Sainte-Beuve, Faguet, Zola, Paul Flat, Doumic, and Wells, Century of French Fiction; for biography: Wormley, Memoir of Balzac (Boston, 1892; defective) ; Ferry, Balzac et ses Amis (Paris, 1888) ; Lemer, Balzac, sa Vie et ses Œuvres (Paris, 1892) . Translations, fairly complete and satisfactory, of the Human Comedy are published in London, Boston, Philadelphia, and New York. ”