effect is produced in one of Balzac's finest stories, the 'Recherche de l'Absolu.' Every accessory is provided to induce us, so long as we are under the spell, to regard the discovery of the philosopher's stone as a reasonable application of human energy. We are never quite clear whether Balthazar Claes is a madman or a commanding genius. We are kept trembling on the verge of a revelation till we become interested in spite of our more sober sense. A single diamond turns up in a crucible which was unluckily produced in the absence of the philosopher, so that he cannot tell what are the necessary conditions of repeating the process. He is supposed to discover the secret just as he is struck by a paralysis, which renders him incapable of revealing it, and dies whilst making desperate efforts to communicate the crowning success to his family. Balzac throws himself into the situation with such energy that we are irresistibly carried away by his enthusiasm. The impossibility ceases to annoy us, and merely serves to give additional dignity to the story. * * * * * One other variety of mystification may introduce us to some of Balzac's most powerful stories. He indulges more frequently than could be wished in downright melodrama, or what is generally called sensational writing. In the very brilliant sketch of Nathan in 'Une Fille d'Eve,' he remarks that 'the mission of genius is to search, through the accidents of the true, for that which must appear probable to all the world.' The common saying, that truth is stranger than fiction, should properly be expressed as an axiom that fiction ought not to be so strange as truth. A marvellous event is interesting in real life, simply because we know that it happened. In a fiction we know that it did not happen; and therefore it is interesting only as far as it is explained. Anybody can invent a giant or a genius by the simple process of altering figures or piling up superlatives. The artist has to make the existence of the giant or the genius conceivable. Balzac, however, often enough forgets this principle, and treats us to purely preposterous incidents, which are either grotesque or simply childish. The history of the marvellous 'Thirteen,' for example, that mysterious band which includes statesmen, beggars, men of fortune, and journalists, and goes about committing the most inconceivable crimes without the possibility of discovery, becomes simply ludicrous. Balzac, as usual, labours to reconcile our minds to the absurdity; but the effort is beyond his powers. The amazing disease which he invents for the benefit of the villains in the 'Cousine Bette' can only be accepted as a broad joke. At times, as in the story of the 'Grande Breteche,' where the lover is bricked up by the husband in the presence of the wife, he reminds us of Edgar Poe's worst extravagances. There is, indeed, this much to be said for Balzac in comparison with the