New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1889-01-20
BALZAC IN ENGLISH.
TIE STUDY OF A GREAT SOUL

LOUIS LA1IBERT. BY Honore do Balzac. Trans
lated by Katherine Prescott Morreey win
an Introduction by George Frederic Parsons.
I2mo, PIP. ely, 255. Boston: Roberts Brothers
Louis Lambert and Scraphita' the most
difficult Of Balzao's works, and hardly 20 be
attempted without some helpful calculation.
II is hot that the treatment Is obscure, for Bal
zse is always luminously clear, but it Is that
the subject matter is unfamiliar. In the first
of these remarkable works, now translated
admirably by Miss Wormeiey, and presented to
the American reader with an introduction Dc
signed to put him thoroughly en- rapport with
the author, an entirely new phase Of human
nature is explored In the Peau de Chagnn,'
which is largely allegorical passion and greed
were seen consuming their victim. There the
processes examined were all, or Dearly all
destructive and debasing. 1t was picture OF
Society committing slow suicide. In Louis Lam
bert all sensual emotion is banished. We have
in this book the study Of great soul encosed
in feeble body, wearing out its vehicle, destroy
ing by its vehement manifestation the possible
ties Of an earthly career, and finally exhausting
the organism through which it functions TO such an
extent that insanity is diagnosed
But it is sufficiently evident to those who
bear in mind the scope and drift of Balzac's
geaeral plan, that Louis lambert was not
those who find it too much trouble to look below
the surface, even for truths best deserving re-
search Balzac in the Coincide Humaine' has
studied in turn all types; those below the average
| level; those upon it,; and lastly those above IT,
OF these latter Louis Lambert Is the representa-
| tive. In him body is subOrdnated to spirit
| His aspirations and powers alike unfit him for
material existence He sees and deSpses the
sordid influences which govern the majority.
He revolts from the chronic injustice which self
| interest and rapacity engender and perpetuate
| He finds no path open in Vanity Fair for genius
which respects itself He perceives that all doors
are closed and open but TO golden keys" There
| can be no sympathy, there can be no relations
even, between this great pure soul and the cor
rupt greedy, callous world. Louis Lambert
nearly touches it at one point indeed. The power
| Of noble unselfsh love seems about to envelope
and reconcile him. But his restless intellect car
ries him from earth again, and as he plunges
| into the atmosphere of the higher life, kind Of
hypnotism overcomes his cerebral centres, and
thenceforth he is lost to common existence.
To the eye Of the superficial observer he
is mad But the keen observer and the
intuitive clairvoyant, such as love has made
Pauline. know better. These are aware that the
spirit OF the supposed mailman is withdrawn into
| regions VI IhOuHHo Gnu pthOcP"oh VoV ioi'S "hN
| marvellous 20 admit Of representation, much less
reproduction, here below. Yet they reverently
gather from the inspired lips Of the ecstatic the
! fragmentary oracuar sentences which he lets fall
at intervals and they put these fragments to
| gether in two lists or categories. Even then tho
! careless reader might easily regard them as SIM
| ply an attempt the part Of the author TO indi-
cate the alteration of Louis LAmbcrts mind But
such conclusion would be very far indeed from
the truth. The fact is that in these closely con
denscd sentences put in Louis Lamberts mouth
are concealed the outlines OF some of the bodest
| grandest and most profound speculations ever
published, and that they enhance The central doc
tries Of the Oldest and most esotcric of cosInica
and theosophical systems. Mr. Parsons in his in
production has endeayored TO show the strange