The Human Comedy [11]
in all literature for such time as was allotted him, and perhaps the man of greatest genius who was ever a desperately hard worker, falsified that most uncomfortable but truest of proverbs--"Hard work never made money."
If, however, he was but scantily rewarded with the money for which he had a craving (not absolutely, I think, devoid of a touch of genuine avarice, but consisting chiefly of the artist's desire for pleasant and beautiful things, and partly presenting a variety or phase of the grandiose imagination, which was his ruling characteristic), Balzac had plenty of the fame, for which he cared quite as much as he cared for money. Perhaps no writer except Voltaire and Goethe earlier made such a really European reputation; and his books were of a kind to be more widely read by the general public than either Goethe's or Voltaire's. In England (Balzac liked the literature but not the country, and never visited England, though I believe he planned a visit) this popularity was, for obvious reasons, rather less than elsewhere. The respectful vogue which French literature had had with the English in the eighteenth century had ceased, owing partly to the national enmity revived and fostered by the great war, and partly to the growth of a fresh and magnificent literature at home during the first thirty years of the nineteenth in England. But Balzac could not fail to be read almost at once by the lettered; and he was translated pretty early, though not perhaps to any great extent. It was in England, moreover, that by far his greatest follower appeared, and appeared very shortly. For it would be absurd in the most bigoted admirer of Thackeray to deny that the author of /Vanity Fair/, who was in Paris and narrowly watching French literature and French life at the very time of Balzac's most exuberant flourishing and education, owed something to the author of /Le Pere Goriot/. There was no copying or imitation; the lessons taught by Balzac were too much blended with those of native masters, such as Fielding, and too much informed and transformed by individual genius. Some may think--it is a point at issue not merely between Frenchmen and Englishmen, but between good judges of both nations on each side--that in absolute veracity and likeness to life, in limiting the operation of the inner consciousness on the outward observation to strictly artistic scale, Thackeray excelled Balzac as far as he fell short of him in the powers of the seer and in the gigantic imagination of the prophet. But the relations of pupil and master in at least some degree are not, I think, deniable.
So things went on in light and in shade, in homekeeping and in travel, in debts and in earnings, but always in work of some kind or another, for eighteen years from the turning point of 1829. By degrees, as he gained fame and ceased to be in the most pressing want of money, Balzac left off to some extent, though never entirely, those miscellaneous writings--reviews (including puffs), comic or general sketches, political diatribes, "physiologies" and the like--which, with his discarded prefaces and much more interesting matter, were at last, not many years ago, included in four stout volumes of the /Edition Definitive/. With the exception of the /Physiologies/ (a sort of short satiric analysis of this or that class, character, or personage), which were very popular in the reign of Louis Philippe in France, and which Albert Smith and others introduced into England, Balzac did not do any of this miscellaneous work extremely well. Very shrewd observations are to be found in his reviews, for instance his indication, in reviewing La Touche's /Fragoletta/, of that common fault of ambitious novels, a sort of woolly and "ungraspable" looseness of construction and story, which constantly bewilders the reader as to what is going on. But, as a rule, he was thinking too much of his own work and his own principles of working to enter very thoroughly into the work of others. His politics, those of a moderate but decided Royalist and Conservative, were, as has been said,
If, however, he was but scantily rewarded with the money for which he had a craving (not absolutely, I think, devoid of a touch of genuine avarice, but consisting chiefly of the artist's desire for pleasant and beautiful things, and partly presenting a variety or phase of the grandiose imagination, which was his ruling characteristic), Balzac had plenty of the fame, for which he cared quite as much as he cared for money. Perhaps no writer except Voltaire and Goethe earlier made such a really European reputation; and his books were of a kind to be more widely read by the general public than either Goethe's or Voltaire's. In England (Balzac liked the literature but not the country, and never visited England, though I believe he planned a visit) this popularity was, for obvious reasons, rather less than elsewhere. The respectful vogue which French literature had had with the English in the eighteenth century had ceased, owing partly to the national enmity revived and fostered by the great war, and partly to the growth of a fresh and magnificent literature at home during the first thirty years of the nineteenth in England. But Balzac could not fail to be read almost at once by the lettered; and he was translated pretty early, though not perhaps to any great extent. It was in England, moreover, that by far his greatest follower appeared, and appeared very shortly. For it would be absurd in the most bigoted admirer of Thackeray to deny that the author of /Vanity Fair/, who was in Paris and narrowly watching French literature and French life at the very time of Balzac's most exuberant flourishing and education, owed something to the author of /Le Pere Goriot/. There was no copying or imitation; the lessons taught by Balzac were too much blended with those of native masters, such as Fielding, and too much informed and transformed by individual genius. Some may think--it is a point at issue not merely between Frenchmen and Englishmen, but between good judges of both nations on each side--that in absolute veracity and likeness to life, in limiting the operation of the inner consciousness on the outward observation to strictly artistic scale, Thackeray excelled Balzac as far as he fell short of him in the powers of the seer and in the gigantic imagination of the prophet. But the relations of pupil and master in at least some degree are not, I think, deniable.
So things went on in light and in shade, in homekeeping and in travel, in debts and in earnings, but always in work of some kind or another, for eighteen years from the turning point of 1829. By degrees, as he gained fame and ceased to be in the most pressing want of money, Balzac left off to some extent, though never entirely, those miscellaneous writings--reviews (including puffs), comic or general sketches, political diatribes, "physiologies" and the like--which, with his discarded prefaces and much more interesting matter, were at last, not many years ago, included in four stout volumes of the /Edition Definitive/. With the exception of the /Physiologies/ (a sort of short satiric analysis of this or that class, character, or personage), which were very popular in the reign of Louis Philippe in France, and which Albert Smith and others introduced into England, Balzac did not do any of this miscellaneous work extremely well. Very shrewd observations are to be found in his reviews, for instance his indication, in reviewing La Touche's /Fragoletta/, of that common fault of ambitious novels, a sort of woolly and "ungraspable" looseness of construction and story, which constantly bewilders the reader as to what is going on. But, as a rule, he was thinking too much of his own work and his own principles of working to enter very thoroughly into the work of others. His politics, those of a moderate but decided Royalist and Conservative, were, as has been said,