literary problem which consists in making a virtuous person
interesting?

It was no small task to depict the two or three thousand conspicuous
types of a period; for this is, in fact, the number presented to us by
each generation, and which the Human Comedy will require. This crowd
of actors, of characters, this multitude of lives, needed a setting
--if I may be pardoned the expression, a gallery. Hence the very
natural division, as already known, into the Scenes of Private Life, of
Provincial Life, of Parisian, Political, Military, and Country Life.
Under these six heads are classified all the studies of manners which
form the history of society at large, of all its _faits et gestes_, as
our ancestors would have said. These six classes correspond, indeed,
to familiar conceptions. Each has its own sense and meaning, and
answers to an epoch in the life of man. I may repeat here, but very
briefly, what was written by Felix Davin--a young genius snatched from
literature by an early death. After being informed of my plan, he said
that the Scenes of Private Life represented childhood and youth and
their errors, as the Scenes of Provincial Life represented the age of
passion, scheming, self-interest, and ambition. Then the Scenes of
Parisian Life give a picture of the tastes and vice and unbridled
powers which conduce to the habits peculiar to great cities, where the
extremes of good and evil meet. Each of these divisions has its local
color--Paris and the Provinces--a great social antithesis which held
for me immense resources.

And not man alone, but the principal events of life, fall into classes
by types. There are situations which occur in every life, typical
phases, and this is one of the details I most sought after. I have
tried to give an idea of the different districts of our fine country.