Analytical Studies
Honore Balzac
9781465548689
pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
The Physiology of Marriage is couched in a spirit of pseudo-seriousness that leaves one in doubt as to Balzac’s faith with the reader. At times he seems honestly to be trying to analyze a particular phase of his subject; at other times he appears to be ridiculing the whole institution of marriage. If this be not the case, then he would seem unfitted for his task—through the ignorance of a bachelor—and adds to error the element of slander. He is at fault through lack of intimate experience. And yet the flashes of keen penetration preclude such a charge as this. A few bold touches of his pen, and a picture is drawn which glows with convincing reality. While here and there occur paragraphs of powerful description or searching philosophy which proclaim Balzac the mature, Balzac the observant. On the publication of Petty Troubles of Married Life in La Presse, the publishers of that periodical had this to say: M. de Balzac has already produced, as you know, the Physiology of Marriage, a book full of diabolical ingenuity and an analysis of society that would drive to despair Leuwenhoech and Swammerdam, who beheld the entire universe in a drop of water. This inexhaustible subject has again inspired an entertaining book full of Gallic malice and English humor, where Rabelais and Sterne meet and greet him at the same moment. In Petty Troubles we have the sardonic vein fully developed. The whole edifice of romance seems but a card house, and all virtue merely a question of utility. We must not err, however, in taking sentiments at their apparent value, for the real Balzac lies deeper; and here and there a glimpse of his true spirit and greater power becomes apparent. The bitter satire yields place to a vein of feeling true and fine, and gleaming like rich gold amid baser metal. Note Another Glimpse of Adolphus with its splendid vein of reverie and quiet inspiration to higher living. It is touches like this which save the book and reveal the author. Petty Troubles of Married Life is a pendant or sequel to Physiology of Marriage. It is, as Balzac says, to the Physiology what Fact is to Theory, or History to Philosophy, and has its logic, as life, viewed as a whole, has its logic also. We must then say with the author, that if literature is the reflection of manners, we must admit that our manners recognize the defects pointed out by the Physiology of Marriage in this fundamental institution; and we must concede for Petty Troubles one of those terrible blows dealt this social basis
