publisher, Charles Gosselin, that Mme. Recamier had asked him to give a
reading from his Magic Skin, "so that we are going to have a whole lot
of people to boom us in the Faubourg Saint-Germain." And he did not
content himself with all these benevolent "boomers," for, according to
Philibert Audebrand, he himself wrote a very flattering article on his
own work in La Caricature, over one of his three pseudonyms.

The book-collector Jacob sketched a verbal portrait of Balzac in 1831,
a little heavy and over-emphasised, yet fairly like him: "He was about
thirty-two years old, and seemed younger than his age. He had not yet
taken on too much flesh, yet he was far from being slender, as he still
was five or six years earlier. He did not yet wear his hair long, nor
had he a moustache. His open countenance revealed a character
ordinarily kindly and jovial; his high colour, red lips and brilliant
eyes were often likely to give the impression that he had just come
from the dinner table, where he had not wasted his time." In order to
give a greater degree of truth and life to this sketch, it should be
added that Balzac had extremely mobile features, that he was very
sensitive, and that, if anything was said that gave him offence, his
expression became indifferent, non-committal or haughty. He suffered
when he was congratulated on his short stories and tales, for with
justifiable pride he wished to be appreciated as a poet, a philosopher
and a thinker. It has not been sufficiently recognised how well he
understood the essence of his own genius; for, aside from the short
recitals in the Scenes of Private Life, his early works are philosophic
works, The Magic Skin, Louis Lambert, and The Country Doctor, ranging
all the way from the most lofty speculations regarding human
intelligence to the details of the social, material and moral
organisation of a village.