“What you say about my silence is one of those things which, to use your expression, makes me grasp my heart with both hands; for it is incredible I should be able to produce all I do. (I am obeying the most rigorous necessity); so if I am to write, I ought to have more time, and when I rest, I wish to lay down and not take up my pen again.  Really, my poor dear mother, this ought to be understood between us once for all; otherwise, I shall have to renounce all epistolary intercourse. . . .  And this morning I was about to make the first dash at my work, when your letter came and completely upset me.  Do you think it possible to have artistic inspirations after being brought suddenly face to face with such a picture of my miseries as you have traced?  Do you think that if I did not feel them, I should work as I do? . . .  Farewell, my good mother.  Try and achieve impossibilities, which is what I am doing on my side.  My life is one perpetual miracle. . . .  You ask me to write you in full detail; but, my dear mother, have you yet to be told what my existence is?  When I am able to write, I work at my manuscripts; when I am not working at my manuscripts, I am thinking of them; I never have any rest.  How is it my friends are not aware of this? . . .  I beg of you, my dear mother, in the name of my heavy work, never to write me that such a work is good, and such another bad:  you upset me for a fortnight.”

Balzac appreciated what his mother did for him, and while he never fully repaid her the money she had so often requested of him, she might have felt herself partially compensated by these kind words of affection: 

“My kind and excellent mother,—­After writing to you in such haste, I felt my inmost heart melt as I read your letter again, and I worshipped you.  How shall I return to you, when shall I return to you, and can I ever return to you, by my love and endeavors for your happiness, all that you have done for me?  I can at present only express my deep thankfulness. . . .  How deep is my gratitude towards the kind hearts who pluck some of the thorns from my life and smooth my path by their affection.  But constrained to an unceasing warfare against destiny, I have not always leisure to give utterance to what I feel.  I would not, however, allow a day to pass without letting you know the tenderness your late proofs of devotion excite in me.  A mother suffers the pangs of labor more than once with her children, does she not, my mother?  Poor mothers, are you ever enough beloved! . . .  I hope, my much beloved mother, you will not let yourself grow dejected.  I work as hard as it is possible for a man to work; a day is only twelve hours long, I can do no more. . . .  Farewell, my darling mother; I am very tired!  Coffee burns my stomach.  For the last twenty days I have taken no rest; and yet I must still work on, that I may remove your anxieties. . . .  Keep your house; I had already sent an answer to Laura,