"Sometimes," writes Gautier, "he would come to my house in the morning, groaning, exhausted, dizzy with the fresh air, like a Vulcan escaped from his forge, and fling himself down on the sofa. His long night's work had made him ravenously hungry, and he would pound sardines and butter into a kind of paste which reminded him of a dish he had been accustomed to at home, and which he ate spread upon bread. This was his favourite food. As soon as he had eaten he would fall asleep, begging me, before he closed his eyes, to wake him in an hour. Paying no attention to this request, I took care that no noise in the house should disturb this well-earned slumber. When he awoke at last and saw the evening twilight spreading its grey shadows over the sky, he would jump up and overwhelm me with abuse, call me traitor, robber, murderer. I had been the means of his losing 10,000 francs, for he would have earned as much as that with the novel which he would have planned if he had been awake, even leaving possible second and third editions out of the question; I was causing the most terrible catastrophes and most inconceivable complications; I had made him miss appointments with financiers, publishers, duchesses; he would not be in a position to meet his engagements; this fatal sleep would cost him millions.... I was consoled by seeing the fresh Touraine colour returning to his cheeks." When, taking Charles de Lovenjoul's bibliographical work as a guide, we follow Balzac's labours week by week; when we see from his own letters how, never allowing himself to be distracted by those Parisian gaieties in which he nevertheless often took part, nor to be scared by the literary cannonades of his frequently envious critics, he steadily, stone by stone, raised the pyramid of his life's work, determined to make it as broad and as high as possible, we are inspired by a feeling of respect for the man and his courage. The good-natured, stout, noisy Balzac was no Titan; indeed, in that generation of heaven-storming Titans and Titanesses he appears a peculiarly earth-bound creature. But he is of the race of the Cyclopes; he was a mighty master-builder who worked with a giant's strength; and the uncouth, brick-laying, carpentering Cyclops raised his building as high as the two great lyric geniuses of the day, Victor Hugo and George Sand, mounted on their wings.