case, they are by no means destitute of merit.

Relinquishing his career as man of letters, from which he could not
make a living, Honore de Balzac flung himself into business with the
same activity that he had applied to the production of novels. As early
as 1822, he had entertained various business schemes, and he would have
accepted the appointment of deputy supervisor of the construction work
on the Saint-Martin canal, under his brother-in-law, Surville, if he
had been able to give the required security. But he had at his command
only five hundred francs, which was an inadequate sum. The attraction
of business, which was one of the characteristics of his temperament,
enticed him into the most chimerical adventures, although the first
business connection which he formed, and which was in the nature of
publishing and bookselling, resulted in giving him the financial start
which he so ardently desired.




Chapter 4.

In Business.

Having started in to be a "literary man-of-all-work," to borrow the
phrase of Hippolyte Auger, his collaborator on the Feuilleton des
Journaux Politiques, who was closely in touch with him in those early
days, Honore de Balzac had formed relations with the second rate
papers, the publishers of novels, the promoters of all sorts of works
that might lend themselves to speculating purposes in the publishing
line. It was undoubtedly due to the chance demands of literary work