He took to hurried novel-writing. As yet he had not the experience of life requisite to give his productions any lasting value; but he had a vivid, inexhaustibly productive imagination, and had read enough to be able to write stories in a certain passable style, the style of most of the light literature of the day. In 1822 he published, under different pseudonyms, no fewer than five such novels; and during the following three years he wrote others which he himself, with all his self-esteem, could not regard as anything but pot-boilers. In 1822 he writes to his sister: "I did not send you _Birague_, because it is perfect trash. ... In _Jean Louis_ there is some character-drawing, but the plot is wretched. The one merit of these books, dear, is that they bring me in a thousand francs; but I have received the sum in bills which have a long time to run--will it ever be paid?" Those who have toiled through one or more of these early works of Balzac's, will not consider his verdict too harsh. They are distinguished by a certain vivacity--what the French call _verve_--that is all the good that can be said of them. That they possessed the merit which their author himself described as their only one is doubtful, not only because Balzac in his later novels (see _Un grand Homme de Province à Paris_) gives most unflattering descriptions of the publishers who pay with promissory notes, but also because in 1825 he suddenly, in despair, gave up authorship for the time being, in the hope of making a living as a bookseller and printer.