generally were--he did not care, as he said in one of his letters, for
_amities d'epiderme_--and the restriction put on his intercourse with
his sister by the jealousy of M. Surville was one of the many troubles
which darkened his later years.

Occasionally, indeed, there were disagreements between the brother and
sister, when Honore did not approve of Laure's aspirations for
authorship. The only subject which really caused coldness on both
sides, however--and this was temporary--was Laure's want of sympathy
for Balzac's attachment to Madame Hanska; because she, like many of
his friends, felt doubtful whether his passionate love was returned in
anything like equal measure. Perhaps, too, there may have lurked in
the sister's mind a slight jealousy of this alien _grande dame_, who
had stolen away her brother's heart from France, who moved in a sphere
quite unlike that of the Balzac family, and whose existence prevented
several advantageous and sensible marriages which she could have
arranged for Honore. Balzac, it must be allowed, was not always
tactful in his descriptions of the perfections of the Hanska family,
who were, of course, in his eyes, surrounded with aureoles borrowed
from the light of his "polar star." It must have been distinctly
annoying, when the virtues, talents, and charms of the young Countess
Anna were held up as an object lesson for Madame Surville's two
daughters, who were no doubt, from their mother's point of view, quite
as admirable as Madame Hanska's ewe lamb. Nevertheless, there was
never any real separation between the brother and sister; and it is to
Laure that--certain of her participation in his joy--poor Balzac
penned his delighted letter the day after his wedding, signed "Thy
brother Honore, at the summit of happiness."

Laure's own career was chequered. In 1820 she married an engineer, M.