Honoré de Balzac: His Life and Writings | Page 7

attempt to give what could only be a very
inadequate criticism of the books of the great novelist; for that, the
reader must be referred to the many works by learned Frenchmen who
have made a lifelong study of the subject. It is written, however, in the
hope that the admirers of "Eugenie Grandet" and "Le Pere Goriot" may
like to read something of the author of these masterpieces, and that
even those who only know the great French novelist by reputation may
be interested to hear a little about the restless life of a man who was a
slave to his genius--was driven by its insistent voice to engage in work
which was enormously difficult to him, to lead an abnormal and
unhealthy life, and to wear out his exuberant physical strength
prematurely. He died with his powers at their highest and his great task
unfinished; and a sense of thankfulness for his own mediocrity fills the
reader, when he reaches the end of the life of Balzac.

CHAPTER II
Balzac's appearance, dress, and personality--His imaginary world and
schemes for making money--His family, childhood, and school- days.
According to Theophile Gautier, herculean jollity was the most striking
characteristic of the great writer, whose genius excels in sombre and
often sordid tragedy. George Sand, too, speaks of Balzac's "serene soul
with a smile in it"; and this was the more remarkable, because he lived
at a time when discontent and despair were considered the sign-manual
of talent.
Physically Balzac was far from satisfying a romantic ideal of fragile
and enervated genius. Short and stout, square of shoulder, with an
abundant mane of thick black hair--a sign of bodily vigour--his whole
person breathed intense vitality. Deep red lips, thick, but finely curved,
and always ready to laugh, attested, like the ruddiness in his full cheeks,

to the purity and richness of his blood. His forehead, high, broad, and
unwrinkled, save for a line between the eyes, and his neck, thick, round,
and columnar, contrasted in their whiteness with the colour in the rest
of the face. His hands were large and dimpled-- "beautiful hands," his
sister calls them. He was proud of them, and had a slight prejudice
against any one with ugly extremities. His nose, about which he gave
special directions to David when his bust was taken, was well cut,
rather long, and square at the end, with the lobes of the open nostrils
standing out prominently. As to his eyes, according to Gautier, there
were none like them.[*] They had inconceivable life, light, and
magnetism. They were eyes to make an eagle lower his lids, to read
through walls and hearts, to terrify a wild beast--eyes of a sovereign, a
seer, a conqueror. Lamartine likens them to "darts dipped in
kindliness." Balzac's sister speaks of them as brown; but, according to
other contemporaries, they were like brilliant black diamonds, with rich
reflections of gold, the white of the eyeballs being tinged with blue.
They seemed to be lit with the fire of the genius within, to read souls,
to answer questions before they were asked, and at the same time to
pour out warm rays of kindliness from a joyous heart.
[*] "Portraits Contemporains--Honore de Balzac," by Theophile
Gautier.
At all points Balzac's personality differed from that of his
contemporaries of the Romantic School--those transcendental geniuses
of despairing temper, who were utterly hopeless about the prosaic
world in which, by some strange mistake, they found themselves; and
from which they felt that no possible inspiration for their art could be
drawn. So little attuned were these unfortunates to their commonplace
surroundings that, after picturing in their writings either fiendish
horrors, or a beautiful, impossible atmosphere, peopled by beings out
of whom all likeness to humanity had been eliminated, they not
infrequently lost their mental balance altogether, or hurried by their
own act out of a dull world which could never satisfy their lively
imaginations. Balzac, on the other hand, loved the world. How, with
the acute powers of observation, and the intuition, amounting almost to
second sight, with which he was gifted, could he help doing so? The

man who could at will quit his own personality, and invest himself with
that of another; who would follow a workman and his wife on their
way home at night from a music-hall, and listen to their discussions on
domestic matters till he imbibed their life, felt their ragged clothing on
his back, and their desires and wants in his soul,--how could he find life
dull, or the most commonplace individual uninteresting?
In dress Balzac was habitually careless. He would rush to the printer's
office, after twelve hours of hard work, with his hat drawn over his
eyes, his hands thrust into shabby gloves, and his feet in shoes with
high