The Comedie Ilumainc, as it stands, vast yet unfinished, has been compared by Zola to a cyclo pean palace, with splendid halls and wretched cor ners, with broad eorridors and narrow passages, and superpiled stories in varied architecture. Two thousand characters cross its stage; and in their mimic life, which to Balzac for the time became reality, they formulate the chief types and events of social existence in such a variety of setting that his comedy has not only its genealogy but its geography. It is -a work of eritiesim, analy sis, and investigation, to be enjoyed in its parts, but to be understood only as a whole. Balzac divided his Human Comedy into Scenes of Pri vate Life, of _Provincial Life, of Parisian Life, of Country Life, of Polities and War, and to these he added Studies, philosophical and analytic. There are those who admire the analytic acumen displayed in this division ; but as Balzac fre quently transferred tales and novels from one to another group to suit his fancy or a publisher's convenience, it seems time wasted to stress the classification. It is more philosophical to study his work as it grew in his mind—that is, chrono logically—and then to treat it briefly in its entirety. Les Chonans was followed by six Sevres de la Vie Prime (1S30), of which El Per dugo is a masterly tale of terror, and Gobseck, one of the world's great studies of morbid ava rice. La Maison du Chat-yui-pelote (1830), writ ten before these, though published a little later, in its plea for conventional marriage shows Bal zae to be a master in social psychology. And, as though he would excel at once in every genre, the same year witnesses the Dresden-shepherdess in troduction and the luridly romantic close of U nc Double Famille; the curious Macchiavellianism of Les Deux Heves; Adieu, a masterpiece of tragic pathos; the fantastic L'Elixir de Longue Vie; two stories of abnormal love, Sarrasine and Une Passion dans lc Desert; and, finally, an acute study of the purification of religious feeling through persecution in Une Episode sons la Ter rtur. And with all this came contributions to journals whose titles for this year alone fill two octavo pages of Louvenjoul's Histoire des (En vres de Honore de Balzae.
A marvelous fertility characterized the next three years, till his first meeting with Madame Hanska, (1S33). Much of this time he passed away from Paris, to avoid interruptions. The more important works of 1831 are La Femme de Trone Aos (incomplete), L'Enfant Maudit (in complete), Le llequisitionnaire, Lcs Exiles (a wonderful evocation of Paris in 130S. setting ajar the gate that was to open on the spirit world in Louis Lambert and Seruphita); Le Chef d'CEuvre ineonnu; the remarkable L'Auberge Hauge; the curiously mystic Pectic de Chagrin; the media•al legend, Jesus-Christ cn Flandrc; a remarkable study of avarice, Maitre Cornelius; and, outside the frame of the Human Comedy, the ('mutes Drclatiques. The work of 1832 is even more remarkable. It touches the depths of horror in La Gra/a/c Bret('chc, rises to philosophic heights in Louis Lambert, deals gracefully with romantic honor in Madam-c Firmiani, and with romantic love in La Bourse; becomes pitiful in Colonel Chabert, and tragic in Le Message; gives an exquisite picture of child-life in La Grcna die-re, preaches a stern social morality in La Femme Abandonnee, epitomizes the French clergy of the Restoration in Le Curd de Tours, unveils the courtesan morals of the Renaissance in Les Murana, and crowns the year with the mystic Louis Lambert. And during 1833 also, he tells a correspondent that he lives in "an atmosphere of thoughts, ideas, plans, works, conceptions, that mingle, bubble, and sparkle in my brain." Of these, the Conies DrOlatiques show the effervesc ing of a animal nature; Ferragus is a sort of detective story; Le Medcein-de-eam pagne is photographic in its reproduction of peasant thought and country scenes, and Eu genic Grande( is Balzac's greatest study of ava rice, and perhaps his greatest novel. No wonder that in January, 1834, Balzac complains that he is "dazed with ideas and hungry for rest." Yet
this year produced Pere Goriot, thought by many to be his best novel; La Duchesse de Langeais, Le recherche de l'absolu, part of Seraphita, and many revisions of older work. Balzac now be gins to suffer, naturally, from neuralgia, but in 1S35 writes a fine study of remorse, Cue drame on burl de la titer; an inferior one, Mebnoth Reeoneilie; the weirdly sensuous La fille our Yeas d'Or; and that subtly humorous 'bride's breviary,' Le Contrat de Mariage. His one long novel of the year, Seraphita, is an exquisitely mystic poem in prose, a hymn to the purification of human passion by a sublime aspiration for the divorce of sentiment from sense, first and best product of that love of his for Madame Hanska, which almost immediately became a distraction and a hindrance to his genius.
With 1836 we enter on a period of arrested development, although that year offers the charm ing Alesse d'A ; the ultra romantic Lys duns la Vallee; the admirable last part of L'Enfant Maudit; a classic study of La Vieille Fille, the French School for Scandal; L'Interdietion, a legal romance, and some less significant work. Les Employes marks in 1837 the lowest ebb of the mature Balzac. Gambara, Cesar Birotteau, and the Contcs Drolatiques complete the work of that year; and 1838 is as relatively insignificant, with Le Cabinet des Antiques, La Maison Yncingen, d'Ere, and the first part of what was to become a great novel. Les Spirit dears ct Miseres des Courtisanes. In this year he bought a country house, 'Les Jardies,' where Gambetta met his death, and where Balzac did most of his work until, in 1843. he bought and fitted up, in long-deferred hope of mar riage, the city house in which he died. His country life lent a passing freshness to Lc Cure dr Village (1839) and to the early parts of Beatrix, a curious study of the instinct of social conformity common to all phases of feminine affection—the platonic, the cerebral, and the venal. To 1839 belongs also Massimilla Doni, and 1840 brought Le Secret de la Prineesse de Cadignan, the fine Secondeetude de Femme, e, Pier rette, La Muse du Departement, part of Les Illu sions Perches, with sonic very inferior work. Then something of his old exuberance returns, and 1841 sees 17ne 7YnOn-euso Affairc, the terri ble Bachelor Housekeeping (La llabouilleuse), Eirsule Jlirouet, Les Memoi•es de dour kitties Mariers, La Fausse Maitresse, and Le Martyr Caleiniste. The year 1842 is unimportant in production, but memorable for the first collected publication of the Human, Comedy under that title, with its evolutionist preface. and for addi tions and revisions to which this gave occasion. In 1843 Balzac spins copy in llotwine, finishes La Muse do Wparlenient and Les Illusions Per dues, a satire on French journalism, his longest novel, and by the number of its characters and the ramifications of its plot., one of the chief radiating points in the study of the psychology of La Comedic Humainc. He visited nidathe Hanska, now a widow, this year in Russia, and in 1845 and 18-16 twice in Italy and once in Ger many: but he now worked, as he says. "with a fury more than French—Balzaeian." In 1S44 he printed the playfully romantic Jlodeste Mignon, completed rix and Les Pet its Bourgeois (printed, 1854), and published all that appeared during his lifetime of Les Paysans, the most sternly realistic of his novels. The years 1845 and 1846 produced only trivial work; but he was working on four great novels that were to crown his genius, La Consine Bette, Cousin Pons, Les Spleadeurs et Mise•es des Courtisanes, and L'En vers de l'Histoirc Contemporaine, that was to close the Human Comedy with its noblest con ception of Christian womanhood. Sickness made his last years unfruitful; and his posthumous Depute d'Arcis is largely by his literary executor, Charles Ribou. Balzac's attempts in drama, ex cept possibly Mercadet (first acted in 185t), are not significant.