His deliberate approach to
the action, through the picture of the house and its inmates, has
achieved its purpose; it has given him the effect which the action
most demands and could least acquire by itself, the effect of time.
And there is no doubt that the story immensely gains by being treated
in Balzac's way, rather than as the life of a disappointed girl,
studied from within. In that case the subject of the book might easily
seem to be wearing thin, for the fact is that Eugenie has not the
stuff of character to give much interest to her story, supposing it
were seen through her eyes. She is good and true and devoted, but she
lacks the poetry, the inner resonance, that might make a living drama
of her simple emotions. Balzac was always too prosaic for the creation
of virtue; his innocent people--unless they may be grotesque as well
as innocent, like Pons or Goriot--live in a world that is not worth
the trouble of investigation. The interest of Eugenie would infallibly
be lowered, not heightened, by closer participation in her romance; it
is much better to look at it from outside, as Balzac does for the most
part, and to note the incidents that befell her, always provided that
the image of lagging time can be fashioned and preserved. As for that,
Balzac has no cause to be anxious; it is as certain that he can do
what he will with the subject of a story, handle it aright and compel
it to make its impression, as that he will fail to understand the
sensibility of a good-natured girl.
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