The Thirteen
THE THIRTEEN BY HONORE DE BALZAC INTRODUCTION The _Histoire des Treize_ consists--or rather is built up--of three stories: _Ferragus_ or the _Rue Soly_, _La Duchesse de Langeais_ or _Ne touchez-paz a la hache_, and _La Fille aux Yeux d'Or_. To tell the truth, there is more power than taste throughout the _Histoire des Treize_, and perhaps not very much less unreality than power. Balzac is very much better than Eugene Sue, though Eugene Sue also is better than it is the fashion to think him just now. But he is here, to a certain extent competing with Sue on the latter's own
[Footnote 52: The _Times_, January 4, 1861.]
[Footnote 53: Letter to _Dublin News_, dated January 26, 1861. Cited in
_The Liberator_, March 1, 1861. Garrison, editor of _The Liberator_, was
then earnest in advocating "letting the South go in peace" as a good
riddance.]
[Footnote 54: _Saturday Review_, March 2, 1861, p. 216.]
[Footnote 55: _London Chronicle_, March 14, 1861. Cited in _The
Liberator_, April 12, 1861.]
[Footnote 56: _London Review_, April 20, 1861. Cited in Littel's _Living
Age_, Vol. LXIX, p. 495. The editor of the _Review_ was a Dr. Mackay,
but I have been unable to identify him, as might seem natural from his
opinions, as the Mackay previously quoted (p. 37) who was later New York
correspondent of the _Times_.]
[Footnote 57: Matthew Arnold, _Letters_, Vol. I., p. 150. Letter to Mrs.
Forster, January 28, 1861.]
[Footnote 58: Julian Hawthorne, _Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife_, Vol.
II, pp. 271-78. _Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier_, Vol. II,
pp. 439 seq.]
THE THIRTEEN BY HONORE DE BALZAC INTRODUCTION The _Histoire des Treize_ consists--or rather is built up--of three stories: _Ferragus_ or the _Rue Soly_, _La Duchesse de Langeais_ or _Ne touchez-paz a la hache_, and _La Fille aux Yeux d'Or_. To tell the truth, there is more power than taste throughout the _Histoire des Treize_, and perhaps not very much less unreality than power. Balzac is very much better than Eugene Sue, though Eugene Sue also is better than it is the fashion to think him just now. But he is here, to a certain extent competing with Sue on the latter's own