Introduction - Page 2

acquaintance with the author through the medium of the Analytical Studies. He would be almost certain to misjudge Balzac's attitude, and might even be tempted to forsake his further cultivation. The mistake would be serious for the reader and unjust to the author. These studies are chiefly valuable as outlining a peculiar--and, shall we say, forced?--mood that sought expression in an isolated channel. All his life long, Balzac found time for miscellaneous writings--critiques, letters, reviews, essays, political diatribes and sketches. In early life they were his "pot-boilers," and he never ceased writing them, probably urged partly by continued need of money, partly through fondness for this sort of thing. His Physiology is fairly representative of the material, being analysis in satirical vein of sundry foibles of society. This class of composition was very popular in the time of Louis Philippe.

The Physiology of Marriage is couched in a spirit of pseudo-seriousness that leaves one in doubt as to Balzac's faith with the reader. At times he seems honestly to be trying to analyze a particular phase of his subject; at other times he appears to be ridiculing the whole institution of marriage. If this be not the case, then he would seem unfitted for his task--through the ignorance of a bachelor--and adds to error the element of slander. He is at fault through lack of intimate experience. And yet the flashes of keen penetration preclude such a charge as this. A few bold touches of his pen, and a picture is drawn which glows with convincing reality. While here and there occur paragraphs of powerful description or searching philosophy which proclaim Balzac the mature, Balzac the observant.

On the publication of Petty Troubles of Married Life in La Presse, the publishers of that periodical had this to say: "M. de Balzac has already produced, as you know, the Physiology of Marriage, a book full of diabolical ingenuity and an analysis of society that would drive to despair Leuwenhoech and Swammerdam, who beheld the entire universe in a drop of water. This inexhaustible subject has again inspired an entertaining book full of Gallic malice and English humor, where Rabelais and Sterne meet and greet him at the same moment."

In Petty Troubles we have the sardonic vein fully developed. The whole edifice of romance seems but a card house, and all virtue merely a question of utility. We must not err, however, in taking sentiments at their apparent value, for the real Balzac lies deeper; and here and there a glimpse of his true spirit and greater power becomes apparent. The bitter satire yields place to a vein of feeling true and fine, and gleaming like rich gold amid baser metal. Note "Another Glimpse of Adolphus" with its splendid vein of reverie and quiet inspiration to higher living. It is touches like this which save the book and reveal the author.

Petty Troubles of Married Life is a