Madame Surville had at least one of her mother's traits--that of continually harassing Balzac by trying to marry him to some rich woman; once she had even chosen for him the goddaughter of Louis- Philippe. But the most serious breach of relations between the two resulted from her failure to approve of Balzac's adoration of Madame Hanska. While admitting the extreme beauty of the celebrated Daffinger portrait, she was jealous of his /Predilecta/. When she saw the bound proofs of /La Femme superieure/ which he had intended for Madame Hanska, she felt that she was being neglected. In the end, he robbed his /Chatelaine/ to the profit of his /cara sorella/. But when she became impatient at Balzac's prolonged stay at Wierzchownia, he resented it, explaining that marriage is like cream--a change of atmosphere would spoil it,--that bad marriages could be made with the utmost ease, but good ones required infinite precautions and scrupulous attention. He tried to make her see the advantage of this marriage, writing her: "Consider, dear Laura, none of us are as yet, so to speak, /arrived/; if, instead of being obliged to work in order to live, I had become the husband of one of the cleverest, the best-born, and best-connected of women, who is also possessed of a solid though circumscribed fortune, in spite of the wish of the lady to live retired, to have no intercourse even with the family, I should still be in a position to be much better able to be of use to you all. I have the certainty of the warm kindness and lively interest which Madame Hanska takes in the dear children. Thus it is more than a duty in my mother, and all belonging to me, to do nothing to hinder me from the happy accomplishment of a union which /before all is my happiness/. Again, it must not be forgotten that this lady is illustrious, not only on account of her high descent, but for her great reputation for wit, beauty, and fortune (for she is credited with all the millions of her daughter); she is constantly receiving proposals of marriage from men of the highest rank and position. But she is something far better than rich and noble; she is exquisitely good, with the sweetness of an angel, and of an easy compatibility in daily life which every day surprises me more and more; she is, moreover, thoroughly pious. Seeing all these great advantages, the world treats my hopes with something of mocking incredulity, and my prospects of success are denied and derided on all sides. If we were all to live . . . under the same roof, I could conceive the difficulties raised by my mother about her dignity; but to keep on the terms which are due to a lady who brings with her (fortune apart) most precious social advantages, I think you need only confine yourself to giving her the impression that my relations are kind and affectionate amongst themselves, and kindly affectionate towards the man she loves. It is the only way to