in this characteristic when compared with those of its first and last
periods; and I cannot think of many that quite come up to one's
expectations.

For a short time he was left pretty much to himself, and recovered
rapidly. But late in 1814 a change of official duties removed the
Balzacs to Paris, and when they had established themselves in the
famous old _bourgeois_ quarter of the Marais, Honore was sent to
divers private tutors or private schools till he had "finished his
classes" in 1816 at the age of seventeen and a half. Then he attended
lectures at the Sorbonne where Villemain, Guizot, and Cousin were
lecturing, and heard them, as his sister tells us, enthusiastically,
though there are probably no three writers of any considerable repute
in the history of French literature who stand further apart from
Balzac. For all three made and kept their fame by spirited and
agreeable generalizations and expatiations, as different as possible
from the savage labor of observation on the one hand and the gigantic
developments of imagination on the other, which were to compose
Balzac's appeal. His father destined him for the law; and for three
years more he dutifully attended the offices of an attorney and a
notary, besides going through the necessary lectures and examinations.
All these trials he seems to have passed, if not brilliantly, yet
sufficiently.

And then came the inevitable crisis, which was of an unusually severe
nature. A notary, who was a friend of the elder Balzac's and owed him
some gratitude offered not merely to take Honore into his office, but
to allow him to succeed to his business, which was a very good one, in
a few years on very favorable terms. Most fathers, and nearly all
French fathers, would have jumped at this; and it so happened that