Translations of Balzac, especially in those "editions de luxe" with dreadful interpretative prefaces by English professors, are odious to me. They seem the sort of thing one expects to find under glass-cases in the houses of cultured financiers. They are admirably adapted for wedding presents. And they have illustrations! That is really too much. A person who can endure to read Balzac, or any other great imaginative writer, in an edition with illustrations, is a person utterly outside the pale. It must be for barbarians of this sort that the custom has arisen of having handsome young women, representing feminine prettiness in general, put upon the covers of books in the way they put them upon chocolate boxes. I have seen even "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" prostituted in this manner. It is all on a par with every other aspect of modern life. Indeed it may be said that what chiefly distinguishes our age from previous ages is its habit of leaving nothing to the imagination. On the whole, Balzac must still be regarded as the greatest novelist that ever lived. Not to love Balzac is not to love the art of fiction, not to love the huge restorative pleasure of wandering at large through a vast region of imaginary characters set in localities and scenes which may be verified and authenticated by contact with original places. I would flatly refuse to two classes of persons, at any rate, any claim to be regarded as genuine lovers of fiction. The first class are those who want nothing but moral support and encouragement. These are still under the illusion that Balzac is a wicked writer. The second class are those who want nothing but neurotic excitement and tingling sensual thrills. These are under the illusion that Balzac is a dull writer. There is yet a third class to whom I refuse the name of lovers of fiction. These are the intellectual and psychological maniacs who want nothing but elaborate social and personal problems, the elucidation of which may throw scientific light upon anthropological evolution. Well! We have George Eliot to supply the need of the first; the author of "Homo Sapiens" to supply the need of the second; and Paul Bourget to deal with the last. It is difficult not to extend our refusal of the noble title of real Fiction-Lovers to the whole modern generation. The frivolous craze for short books and short stories is a proof of this. The unfortunate illusion which has gone abroad of late that a thing to be "artistic" must be concise and condensed and to the point, encourages this heresy. I would add these "artistic" persons with their pedantry of condensation and the "exact phrase" to all the others who don't really love this large and liberal art. To a genuine fiction-lover a book cannot be too long. What causes such true amorists of imaginative creation real suffering is when a book comes to an end. It can never be enjoyed again with quite the same relish, with quite the same glow and thrill and ecstasy.