story to be published in the _Revue Parisienne_. After they had
trudged through scores of streets in vain, Balzac, to his intense joy,
discovered "Marcas" over a small tailor's shop, to which he added, as
"a flame, a plume, a star," the initial Z. Z. Marcas conveyed to him
the idea of a great, though unknown, philosopher, poet, or
silversmith, like Benvenuto Cellini; he went no farther, he was
satisfied--he had found "_the_ name of names."[*]

[*] "Balzac en Pantoufles," by Leon Gozlan.

Many are the amusing anecdotes told of Balzac's schemes for becoming
rich. Money he struggled for unceasingly, not from sordid motives, but
because it was necessary to his conception of a happy life. Without
its help he could never be freed from his burden of debt, and united
to the _grande dame_ of his fancy, who must of necessity be posed in
elegant toilette, on a suitable background of costly brocades and
objects of art. Nevertheless, in spite of all his efforts, and of a
capacity and passion for work which seemed almost superhuman, he never
obtained freedom from monetary anxiety. Viewed in this light, there is
pathos in his many impossible plans for making his fortune, and
freeing himself from the strain which was slowly killing him.

Some of his projected enterprises were wildly fantastic, and prove
that the great author was, like many a genius, a child at heart; and
that, in his eyes, the world was not the prosaic place it is to most
men and women, but an enchanted globe, like the world of "Treasure
Island," teeming with the possibility of strange adventure. At one
time he hoped to gain a substantial income by growing pineapples in
the little garden at Les Jardies, and later on he thought money might
be made by transporting oaks from Poland to France. For some months he