through contrasts and resemblances, its deep ulterior meaning. And this is what he has tried to show in his _nouvelles_. Thus we see what place they hold in his _The Human Comedy_. Balzac's short stories are not, in his work, what one might be tempted to call somewhat disdainfully "the chips of his workshop." Nor are they even, in relation to his long novels, what a painter's sketches, rough drafts, and studies are to his finished pictures. He did not write them by way of practice or experiment; they have their own value, intrinsic and well-defined. It would be a mistake, also, to consider them as little novels, in briefer form, which more time or leisure might have allowed their author to treat with more fullness. He conceived them for their own sake; he would never have consented to give them proportions which did not befit them. The truth of the matter is that by reason of their dealing with the exceptional or extraordinary, they are, in a way, the element of _romantic drama_ in Balzac's _Comedy;_ and by reason of their philosophic or symbolic significance, they add the element of mystery to a work which but for them would be somewhat harshly illumined by the hard light of reality. Once more, that is why he did not classify his _The Conscript_ with the _Scenes of Political Life_, or his _A Seashore Drama_ with the _Scenes of Country Life_. That, too, is what gives them their interest and their originality. That is what distinguishes them from the stories of Prosper Mérimée, or, later, those of Guy de Maupassant. So much being made clear, it is not important now to ask whether they really have as much depth of meaning as their author claimed for them. That is another question; and I have just indicated why I cannot treat it in this brief Introduction. Only in a complete study of Balzac could his _nouvelles_ be adequately judged. Then their due place would be assigned to them, in the full scheme of _The Human Comedy_. I shall be happy if the English reader remembers this; and if the reading of these _nouvelles_, after having for a moment charmed him, shall also inspire him with the wish to know more closely and completely the greatest of French novelists. F. Brunetière [Footnote 1: According to Lovenjoul, _A Seashore Drama_ was first published in the fourth edition of the _Philosophic Studies_, in 1835. But this fact in no wise lessens the force of M. Brunetière's argument.--Ed.] The Unknown Masterpiece TO A LORD: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 1845. I GILLETTE