And the present writer has some indistinct
recollection of meeting, many years since, with a
translation of La Peau de Chagrin. But so far
as he knows, excepting the instances of these
two books, not one other work, out of the whole
number of ninety-seven fictions, long and short,
which proceeded from the same fertile pen, has
been offered to our own readers in our own
language. Immense help has been given in this
country to the reputations of Alexandre Dumas,
Victor Hugo, and Eugène Sue: no help whatever,
or next to none, has been given to Balzac
—although he is regarded in France (and rightly
regarded, in some respects) as a writer of fiction
superior to all three.

Many causes, too numerous to be elaborately
traced within the compass of a single article,
have probably contributed to produce this
singular instance of literary neglect. It is not to
be denied, for example, that serious difficulties
stand in the way of translating Balzac, which
are caused by his own peculiarities of style and
treatment. His French is not the clear, graceful,
neatly-turned French of Voltaire and Rousseau.
It is a strong, harsh, solidly vigorous language
of his own; now flashing into the most exquisite
felicities of expression, and now again involved
in an obscurity which only the closest attention
can hope to penetrate. A special man, not
hurried for time, and not easily brought to the
end of his patience, might give the English
equivalent of Balzac with admirable effect. But
ordinary translating of him by average workmen
would only lead, through the means of feeble
parody, to the result of utter failure.

The diificulties, again, caused by his style of
treatment are not to be lightly estimated, in
considering the question of presenting this
author to our own general public. The
peculiarity of Balzac's literary execution is that
he never compromises the subtleties and
delicacies of Art for any consideration of
temporary effect. The framework in which his
idea is set is always wrought with a loving
minuteness which leaves nothing out.
Everything which, in this writer's mind, can even
remotely illustrate the characters that he depicts,
must be elaborately conveyed to the minds of
his readers before the characters themselves
start into action. This quality of minute finish,
of reiterated refining, which is one of Balzac's
great merits, so far as "foreign audiences" are
concerned, is another of the hindrances, so far
as an English audience is concerned, in the way
of translating him.

Allowing all due weight to the force of these
obstacles; and further admitting that Balzac
lays himself open to grave objection (on the part
of that unhappily large section of the English
public which obstinately protests against the
truth wherever the truth is painful), as a writer
who sternly insists on presenting the dreary
aspects of human life, literally, exactly, nakedly,
as he finds them—making these allowances, and
many more if more be needful—it is still impossible
not to regret, for the sake of readers themselves,
that worthy English versions of the best
works of this great writer are not added to the
national library of translated literature.
Towards the latter part of his career, Balzac's own
taste in selection of subject seems to have
become vitiated. His later novels, consummately
excellent as some of them were in a literary
sense, are assuredly, in a moral sense, not to be
defended against the grave accusation of being
needlessly and even horribly repulsive. But no
objections of this sort apply to the majority of
the works which he produced when he was in
the prime of his life and his faculties. The
conception of the character of "Eugénie Grandet"
is one of the purest, tenderest, and most beautiful
things in the whole range of fiction; and
the execution of it is even worthy of the idea.
If the translation already accomplished of this
book be only creditably executed, it may be left
to speak for itself. But there are other fictions
of the writer which deserve the same privilege,
and which have not yet obtained it, "La
Recherche de l'Absolu,"—a family picture which,
for truth, delicacy, and pathos, has been
surpassed by no novelist of any nation or any time;
a literary achievement in which a new and an
imperishable character (the exquisitely-beautiful
character of the wife) has been added to the
great gallery of fiction—remains still unknown
to the general public of England. "Le Père
Goriot"—which, though it unveils some of the
hidden corruptions of Parisian life, unveils them
nobly in the interests of that highest morality
belonging to no one nation and no one sect—
"Le Père Goriot," which stands first and foremost
among all the writer's works, which has
drawn the tears of thousands from the purest
sources, has its appeal still left to make to the
sympathies of English readers. Other shorter
stories, scattered about the "Scènes de la Vie
Privée," the "Scènes de la Vie de Province,"
and the "Scènes de la Vie Parisienne," are as
completely unknown to a certain circle of readers
in this country, and as unquestionably deserve
careful and competent translation, as the longer
and more elaborate productions of Balzac's
inexhaustible pen. Reckoning these shorter stories,
there are at least a dozen of his highest achievements
in fiction which might be safely rendered
into English, which might form a series by
themselves, and which no sensible English-
woman could read and be, either intellectually
or morally, the worse for them.

Thus much, in the way of necessary preliminary
comment on the works of this author, and
on their present position in reference to the
English public. Readers who may be sufficiently
interested in the subject to desire to know
something next about the man himself, may now
derive this information from a singular, and
even from a unique source. The Life of
Balzac has been lately written by his publisher,
of all the people in the world! This is a
phenomenon in itself; and the oddity of it is still
further increased by the fact that the publisher
was brought to the brink of ruin by the author,
that he mentions this circumstance in writing
his life, and that it does not detract one iota