In _Petty Troubles_ we have the sardonic vein fully developed. The whole edifice of romance seems but a card house, and all virtue merely a question of utility. We must not err, however, in taking sentiments at their apparent value, for the real Balzac lies deeper; and here and there a glimpse of his true spirit and greater power becomes apparent. The bitter satire yields place to a vein of feeling true and fine, and gleaming like rich gold amid baser metal. Note “Another Glimpse of Adolphus” with its splendid vein of reverie and quiet inspiration to higher living. It is touches like this which save the book and reveal the author. _Petty Troubles of Married Life_ is a pendant or sequel to _Physiology of Marriage_. It is, as Balzac says, to the _Physiology_ “what Fact is to Theory, or History to Philosophy, and has its logic, as life, viewed as a whole, has its logic also.” We must then say with the author, that “if literature is the reflection of manners, we must admit that our manners recognize the defects pointed out by the _Physiology of Marriage_ in this fundamental institution;” and we must concede for _Petty Troubles_ one of those “terrible blows dealt this social basis.” The _Physiologie du Mariage, ou Meditations de philosophie eclectique sur le bonheur et le malheur conjugal_ is dated at Paris, 1824-29. It first appeared anonymously, December, 1829, dated 1830, from the press of Charles Gosselin and Urbain Canel, in two octavo volumes with its present introduction and a note of correction now omitted. Its next appearance was signed, in 1834, in a two-volume edition of Ollivier. In 1846 it was entered, with its dedication to the reader, in the first edition of _Etudes Analytiques_—the first edition also of the _Comedie Humaine_—as Volume XVI. All the subsequent editions have retained the original small division heads, called Meditations. _Petites Miseres de la Vie Conjugale_ is not dated. Its composition was achieved piecemeal, beginning shortly after its predecessor appeared. But it was not till long after—in 1845-46—that its present two-part form was published in a single octavo volume by Chlendowski. A break had ensued between the first and second parts, the latter having appeared practically in full in _La Presse_ of December, 1845. The sub-headings have remained unchanged since the original printing. J. WALKER MCSPADDEN. THE PHYSIOLOGY OF MARRIAGE; OR, THE MUSINGS OF AN ECLECTIC PHILOSOPHER ON THE HAPPINESS AND UNHAPPINESS OF MARRIED LIFE INTRODUCTION “Marriage is not an institution of nature. The family in the east is entirely different from the family in the west. Man is the servant of nature, and the institutions of society are grafts, not spontaneous growths of nature. Laws are made to suit manners, and manners vary. “Marriage must therefore undergo the gradual development towards perfection to which all human affairs submit.”