It remains only to say a few words about the third division of the ‘Comedie humaine,’ viz., the ‘Etudes analytiques.’  Only two members of the series, the ‘Physiologie du mariage’ and the ’Petites miseres de la vie conjugale,’ were ever completed, and they are not great enough to make us regret the loss of the ‘Pathology of Social Life’ and the other unwritten volumes.  For the two books we have are neither novels nor profound studies, neither great fiction nor great psychology.  That they are worth reading for their suggestiveness with regard to such important subjects as marriage and conjugal life goes without saying, since they are Balzac’s; but that they add greatly to his reputation, not even his most ardent admirer would be hardy enough to affirm.

And now in conclusion, what can one say about this great writer that will not fall far short of his deserts?  Plainly, nothing, yet a few points may be accentuated with profit.  We should notice in the first place that Balzac has consciously tried almost every form of prose fiction, and has been nearly always splendidly successful.  In analytic studies of high, middle, and low life he has not his superior.  In the novel of intrigue and sensation he is easily a master, while he succeeds at least fairly in a form of fiction at just the opposite pole from this, to wit, the idyl (’Le Lys dans la vallee’).  In character sketches of extreme types, like ‘Gobseck,’ his supremacy has long been recognized, and he is almost as powerful when he enters the world of mysticism, whither so few of us can follow him.  As a writer of novelettes he is unrivaled and some of his short stories are worthy to rank with the best that his followers have produced.  In the extensive use of dialect he was a pioneer; in romance he has ‘La Peau de chagrin’ and ‘La Recherche de l’absolu’ to his credit; while some of the work in the tales connected with the name of Catherine de Medici shows what he could have done in historical fiction had he continued to follow Scott.  And what is true of the form of his fiction is true of its elements.  Tragedy, comedy, melodrama are all within his reach; he can call up tears and shudders, laughter and smiles at will.  He knows the whole range of human emotions, and he dares to penetrate into the arcana of passions almost too terrible or loathsome for literature to touch.

In style, in the larger sense of the word, he is almost equally supreme.  He is the father of modern realism and remains its greatest exponent.  He retains always some of the good elements of romance,—­that is to say, he sees the thing as it ought to be,—­and he avoids the pitfalls of naturalism, being a painter and not a photographer.  In other words, like all truly great writers he never forgets his ideals; but he is too impartial to his characters and has too fast a grip on life to fall into the unrealities of sentimentalism.  It is true that he lacked the spontaneity that characterized his great forerunner,