In “Louis Lambert,” he asks whether electricity is not the basis of the particular fluid from which ideas are derived, and proceeds thereupon to consider thought as a complete system similar to that of vegetation; and after analyzing the birth, life, or death of certain thoughts,[16] he expresses the opinion that ideas and sentiments are endowed with physical properties, such as weight and movement; and after fortifying it with striking examples of expectation, fear, anger, and determination, he concludes that facts do not exist, that ideas alone endure, and that volition is a material force, similar to that of steam. In spite of the amount of labor which a work of this kind necessitated, a still greater amount was expended on “Le Médecin de Campagne,” of which every line and every phrase was weighed, rewritten, and corrected again and again. In this work he attempted to grasp the simple beauty of the Scriptures, to surpass the “Vicar of Wakefield,” and to put the “Imitation of Christ” into action; but its pages were written above the level of the ordinary reader, and in spite of its profundity of thought it is perhaps the least known of all his writings. The romance, however, which gained for him the greatest favor in the boudoirs of Europe was the “Mémoires de Deux Jeunes Mariées,” which is one of the few works in which happy and satisfied love has been successfully depicted. In Rousseau there was too much rhetoric, in Richardson too much pretension; Scott was hampered by English prudery, and is consequently chill as an icicle; the poets as a rule were too extravagant and too much engrossed in metaphors; and it remained to Balzac to describe the insensate fears and unreasoning jealousies of that passion of which many speak, but few have known. The masterful handling of these widely contrasting subjects shows not only an equipment of profound penetration and power of observation, but also an erudition at once varied and luminous. His works are those of an anatomist from whom nothing escaped, a psychologist from whom nothing was hidden, and a realist who described all. Joined thereto was the gift of adjective: in this he is the Benvenuto Cellini of literature, for his words seem less like symbols of speech than awakeners of trains of thought.