commonplace surroundings that, after picturing in their writings
either fiendish horrors, or a beautiful, impossible atmosphere,
peopled by beings out of whom all likeness to humanity had been
eliminated, they not infrequently lost their mental balance
altogether, or hurried by their own act out of a dull world which
could never satisfy their lively imaginations. Balzac, on the other
hand, loved the world. How, with the acute powers of observation, and
the intuition, amounting almost to second sight, with which he was
gifted, could he help doing so? The man who could at will quit his own
personality, and invest himself with that of another; who would follow
a workman and his wife on their way home at night from a music-hall,
and listen to their discussions on domestic matters till he imbibed
their life, felt their ragged clothing on his back, and their desires
and wants in his soul,--how could he find life dull, or the most
commonplace individual uninteresting?

In dress Balzac was habitually careless. He would rush to the
printer's office, after twelve hours of hard work, with his hat drawn
over his eyes, his hands thrust into shabby gloves, and his feet in
shoes with high sides, worn over loose trousers, which were pleated at
the waist and held down with straps. Even in society he took no
trouble about his appearance, and Lamartine describes him as looking,
in the salon of Madame de Girardin, like a schoolboy who has outgrown
his clothes. Only for a short time, which he describes with glee in
his letters to Madame Hanska, did he pose as a man of fashion. Then he
wore a magnificent white waistcoat, and a blue coat with gold buttons;
carried the famous cane, with a knob studded with turquoises,
celebrated in Madame de Girardin's story, "La Canne de Monsieur de
Balzac"; and drove in a tilbury, behind a high-stepping horse, with a
tiny tiger, whom he christened Anchise, perched on the back seat. This