when Seraphita lies dead in the rays of the first sun of the nineteenth
century.

I, therefore, had begun, as it were, to read Balzac backwards; instead of
beginning with the plain, simple, earthly tragedy of the Père Goriot, I
first knelt in a beautiful but distant coigne of the great world of his
genius--Seraphita. Certain _nuances_ of soul are characteristic of
certain latitudes, and what subtle instinct led him to Norway in quest of
this fervent soul? The instincts of genius are unfathomable; but he who has
known the white northern women with their pure spiritual eyes, will aver
that instinct led him aright. I have known one, one whom I used to call
Seraphita; Coppée knew her too, and that exquisite volume, "L'Exilé," so
Seraphita-like in the keen blond passion of its verse, was written to her,
and each poem was sent to her as it was written. Where is she now, that
flower of northern snow, once seen for a season in Paris? Has she returned
to her native northern solitudes, great gulfs of sea water, mountain rock,
and pine?

Balzac's genius is in his titles as heaven is in its stars: "Melmoth
Reconcilié," "Jésus-Christ en Flandres," "Le Revers d'un Grand Homme," "La
Cousine Bette." I read somewhere not very long ago, that Balzac was the
greatest thinker that had appeared in France since Pascal. Of Pascal's
claim to be a great thinker I confess I cannot judge. No man is greater
than the age he lives in, and, therefore, to talk to us, the legitimate
children of the nineteenth century, of logical proofs of the existence of
God strikes us in just the same light as the logical proof of the existence
of Jupiter Ammon. "Les Pensées" could appear to me only as infinitely
childish; the form is no doubt superb, but tiresome and sterile to one of
such modern and exotic taste as myself. Still, I accept thankfully, in its
sense of two hundred years, the compliment paid to Balzac; but I would add