Balzac, to borrow a Hindu expression, was “an artificer who built like a giant and finished like a jeweler.” The groundwork of the “Comédie Humaine” was grandly conceived and admirably executed; and though a few of the balconies of its superb superstructure are incomplete, yet as, happily, masterpieces are ever eternally young, it shows no signs of decay, and there is little danger of its falling in ruins. For the decoration of this work, Balzac brought a subtle analysis of men, women, and things, and adorned it all with brilliant ideas and profound reflections, of which the saddest were dug from his own sufferings, and not, as a great writer has said, from the hearts of his mistresses. As everything that he wrote is more or less worthy of attention, a complete collection of his theories and teachings would be as impossible, as an arrangement of Emerson’s best thoughts, and in any event would ill befit the unpretentious character of this treatise. For his elaborate monographs on religion, morality, society, politics, science, and art, the reader must turn to the complete edition of his writings; for in these pages the attempt will be made to render only a handful of unsorted aphorisms and reflections, taken at random, of which the majority will be found to touch merely upon every-day topics, and that in the lightest possible vein. With this brief explanation, for which your indulgence is requested, the crier gives way to the thinker. A woman is to her husband that which her husband has made her. It is still a question, both in politics and marriage, whether empires are overthrown and happiness destroyed through over-confidence or through too great severity. A husband risks nothing in affecting to believe his wife, and in patiently holding his tongue. Of all things, silence worries a woman most. It is, perhaps, only those who believe in God who do good in secret. Statesmen, thinkers, men who have commanded armies,—in a word, those who are really great,—are natural and unaffected, and their simplicity places one at once on an equality with them. Comprehension is equality. Discussion weakens all things. Genius is intuition. The most striking effects of art are but rough counterfeits of nature. To the despair of man, he can do nothing, either for good or for evil, but that which is imperfect. His every work, be it intellectual or physical, is stamped with the mark of destruction. Avarice begins where poverty ends. Dignity is but the screen of pride; from behind it we rage at our ease. There are certain rich organizations, on whom the extremes of happiness and misery produce a soporific effect. The most natural sentiments are those which are acknowledged with the greatest repugnance. The first requisite of revenge is dissimulation. An avowed hatred is powerless. It is in the nature of women to prove the impossible by the possible, and to destroy facts with presentiments.