rather "Like Paris handsome, and like Phoebus clever." There is no
doubt, however, that the interest of the book lies partly in the vivid
and severe picture of journalism given in it, and partly in the way in
which the character of Lucien is adjusted to show up that of the
abstract journalist still farther.

How far is the picture true? It must be said, in fairness to Balzac,
that a good many persons of some competence in France have pronounced
for its truth there; and if that be so, all one can say is, "So much
the worse for French journalists." It is also certain that a lesser,
but still not inconsiderable number of persons in England--generally
persons who, not perhaps with Balzac's genius, have like Balzac
published books, and are not satisfied with their reception by the
press--agree more or less as to England. For myself, I can only say
that I do not believe things have ever been quite so bad in England,
and that I am quite sure there never has been any need for them to be.
There are, no doubt, spiteful, unprincipled, incompetent practitioners
of journalism as of everything else; and it is of course obvious that
while advertisements, the favor of the chiefs of parties, and so
forth, are temptations to newspaper managers not to hold up a very
high standard of honor, anonymity affords to newspaper writers a
dangerously easy shield to cover malice or dishonesty. But I can only
say that during long practice in every kind of political and literary
journalism, I never was seriously asked to write anything I did not
think, and never had the slightest difficulty in confining myself to
what I did think.

In fact Balzac, like a good many other men of letters who abuse
journalism, put himself very much out of court by continually
practising it, not merely during his struggling period, but long after