manifestation, the trumpets of the apocalypse, the colour of heaven, the
closing of this stupendous allegory--Seraphita lying 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 blonde 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," "Jesus-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