Produced by John Bickers; and Dagny THE CELIBATES BY HONORE DE BALZAC INTRODUCTION _Les Celibataires_, the longest number of the original _Comedie Humaine_ under a single title, next to _Illusions perdues_, is not, like that book, connected by any unity of story. Indeed, the general bond of union is pretty weak; and though it is quite true that bachelors and old maids are the heroes and heroines of all three, it would be rather hard to establish any other bond of connection, and it is rather unlikely that any one unprompted would fix on this as a sufficient ground of partnership. Two at least of the component parts, however, are of very high excellence. I do not myself think that _Pierrette_, which opens the series, is quite the equal of its companions. Written, as it was, for Countess Anna de Hanska, Balzac's step-daughter of the future, while she was still very young, it partakes necessarily of the rather elaborate artificiality of all attempts to suit the young person, of French attempts in particular, and it may perhaps be said of Balzac's attempts most of all. It belongs, in a way, to the Arcis series--the series which also includes the fine _Tenebreuse Affaire_ and the unfinished _Depute d'Arcis_--but is not very closely connected therewith. The picture of the actual _Celibataires_, the brother and sister Rogron, with which it opens, is one of Balzac's best styles, and is executed with all his usual mastery both of the minute and of the at least partially repulsive, showing also that strange knowledge of the _bourgeois de Paris_ which, somehow or other, he seems to have attained by dint of unknown foregatherings in his ten years of apprenticeship. But when we come to _Pierrette_ herself, the story is, I think, rather less satisfying. Her persecutions and her end, and the devotion of the faithful Brigaut and the rest, are pathetic no doubt, but tend (I hope it is not heartless to say it) just a very little towards _sensiblerie_. The fact is that the thing is not quite in Balzac's line.