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 pendant or sequel to _Physiology
of Marriage_. It is, as Balzac says, to the _Physiology_ "what Fact is
to Theory, or History to Philosophy, and has its logic, as life,
viewed as a whole, has its logic also." We must then say with the
author, that "if literature is the reflection of manners, we must
admit that our manners recognize the defects pointed out by the
_Physiology of Marriage_ in this fundamental institution;" and we must
concede for _Petty Troubles_ one of those "terrible blows dealt this
social basis."

The _Physiologie du Mariage, ou Meditations de philosophie eclectique
sur le bonheur et le malheur conjugal_ is dated at Paris, 1824-29. It
first appeared anonymously, December, 1829, dated 1830, from the press
of Charles Gosselin and Urbain Canel, in two octavo volumes with its
present introduction and a note of correction now omitted. Its next
appearance was signed, in 1834, in a two-volume edition of Ollivier.
In 1846 it was entered, with its dedication to the reader, in the
first edition of _Etudes Analytiques_--the first edition also of the
_Comedie Humaine_--as Volume XVI. All the subsequent editions have
retained the original small division heads, called Meditations.

_Petites Miseres de la Vie Conjugale_ is not dated. Its composition
was achieved piecemeal, beginning shortly after its predecessor