Physiologie du Mariage, and La Peau de Chagrin,
had produced, and were still producing, large
sums. Others, on the contrary, such as the
Contes Philosophiques (which were a little too
profound for the public) and Louis Lambert
(which was intended to popularise the mysticism
of Swedenborg), had not yet succeeded in pay-
ing their expenses. Estimating his speculation
by what he had in hand, Monsieur Werdet had
not much chance of seeing his way speedily to
quick returns. Estimating it, however, by what
was coming in the future, that is to say, by
the promised privilege of issuing all the writer's
contemplated works, he had every reason to
look happily and hopefully at his commercial
prospects. At this crisis of the narrative, when
the publisher's credit and fortune depended
wholly on the pen of one man, the history of
that man's habits of literary composition assumes
a special interest and importance. Monsieur
Werdet's description of Balzac at his writing-desk
presents by no means the least extraordinary
of the many singular revelations which
compose the story of the author's life.

When he had once made up his mind to produce
a new book, Balzac's first proceeding was
to think it out thoroughly before he put
pen to paper. He was not satisfied with possessing
himself of the main idea only; he followed
it mentally into its minutest ramifications,
devoting to the process just that amount of
patient hard labour and self-sacrifice which no
inferior writer ever has the common sense or the
courage to bestow on his work. With his note-book
ready in his hand, Balzac studied his scenes
and characters straight from life. General knowledge
of what he wanted to describe was not
enough for this determined realist. If he found
himself in the least at fault, he would not hesitate
to take a long journey merely to ensure
truth to nature in describing the street of a
country town, or in painting some minor peculiarity
of rustic character. In Paris he was perpetually
about the streets, perpetually penetrating
into all classes of society, to study the
human nature about him in its minutest varieties.
Day by day, and week by week, his note-book
and his brains were hard at work together,
before he thought of sitting down to his desk to
begin. When he had finally amassed his
materials in this laborious manner, he at last retired
to his study; and from that time, till his book
had gone to press, society saw him no more.

His house-door was now closed to everybody,
except the publisher and the printer; and his
costume was changed to a loose white robe, of
the sort which is worn by the Dominican monks.
This singular writing-dress was fastened round
the waist by a chain of Venetian gold, to which
hung little pliers and scissors of the same precious
metal. White Turkish trousers, and red-morocco
slippers, embroidered with gold, covered
his legs and feet. On the day when he sat down
to his desk, the light of heaven was shut out,
and he worked by the light of candles in superb
silver sconces. Even letters were not allowed
to reach him. They were all thrown, as they
came, into a japan vase, and not opened, no
matter how important they might be, till his
work was all over. He rose to begin writing at
two in the morning, continued, with extraordinary
rapidity, till six; then took his bath, and
stopped in it, thinking, for an hour or more. At
eight o'clock his servant brought him up a cup
of coffee. Before nine his publisher was admitted
to carry away what he had done. From
nine till noon he wrote on again, always at the
top of his speed. At noon he breakfasted on
eggs, with a glass of water and a second cup of
coffee. From one o'clock to six he returned to
work. At six he dined lightly, only allowing
himself one glass of wine. From seven to eight
he received his publisher again: and at eight
o'clock he went to bed. This life he led, while
he was writing his books, for two months together,
without intermission. Its effect on his
health was such that, when he appeared once
more among his friends, he looked, in the
popular phrase, like his own ghost. Chance
acquaintances would hardly have known him
again.

It must not be supposed that this life of resolute
seclusion and fierce hard toil ended with
the completion of the first draught of his manuscript.
At the point where, in the instances of
most men, the serious part of the work would
have come to an end, it had only begun for
Balzac. In spite of all the preliminary studying
and thinking, when his pen had scrambled its
way straight through to the end of the book,
the leaves were all turned back again, and the
first manuscript was altered into a second with
inconceivable patience and care. Innumerable
corrections and interlinings, to begin with, led
in the end to transpositions and expansions
which metamorphosed the entire work. Happy
thoughts were picked out of the beginning of
the manuscript, and inserted where they might
have a better effect at the end. Others at the
end would be moved to the beginning, or the
middle. In one place, chapters would be ex-
panded to three or four times their original
length; in another, abridged to a few paragraphs;
in a third, taken out altogether, or shifted to
new positions. With all this mass of altera-
tions in every page, the manuscript was at last
ready for the printer. Even to the sharp experienced
eyes in the printing-office, it was now
all but illegible. The deciphering it, and setting
it up in a moderately correct form, cost an
amount of patience and pains which wearied out
all the best men in the office, one after another,
before the first series of proofs could be submitted
to the author's eye. When these were
at last complete, they were sent in on large
slips, and the indefatigable Balzac immediately
set to work to rewrite the whole book for the
third time!

He now covered with fresh corrections, fresh
alterations, fresh expansions of this passage,
and fresh abridgments of that, not only the
margins of the proofs all round, but even the
little intervals of white space between the paragraphs.
Lines crossing each other in hide-