New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1893-08-06
BdLZAC on NEWSPAPERS.
4 BITTER SATIRE.

GREAT MAN OF THE PROVINCES, II
PARIS by Honore 10 Balzac. Transl9,e1 hy
Katharine Prescott Normel"y Up. VIII. W
Roberts brothers.
The world at least in It's relation 10 the news
paper has changed its attitude somewhat since
this book was written. II always happens that
n new invention discovery Affects civilized life
one way as long as ts possibilities are mperfecly
UNDERSTOOD ard another way when those posi-
biitios have been more thoroughly tested and
pathological When the old Greek swami intro
duccd pipes beneath his neighbours dwelling ana
shook IL with steam as II there had been an earth
quake he was supposed TO he n magician. but
when Watts made "A steam engine. and Fulton a
steamboat and Stephenson a steam carriage
people soon satisfied themselves that the mystery
OF these things was not above nature, but with
I'm its domain. Something OF similar kind has
happened in the history Of that most important Of
all human inventions. tho daily. weekly, monthly
and quarterly periodical. At the outset. and for
long afterward. II seemed TO possess "A magical
value II may be that even yet the. majority or
people have their opinions made for them by the
periodicals which they read Such persons may
usually be Judged by the printed company they
keep. But the real world OF humanity that which
consists Of men and women who's" minds are not
in somebody else's keeping. who have their Ia
vorite newspaper and their favoritc magazine and
their favorltc review but who Inspect these with
Intelligence. taking nothing on trust-ths real
world knows very well that the periodicals are
only one among the many contrivances for aiding
the individual judgment. and that there Is nothing
whatever miraculous in the assistance they give.
One hcstates incredulOusly over much OF the stun
that was written about the effect Of daily. heb
domadal and nlnety-day criticism in the early
mart OF the nineteenth century. The most insstent
denias have not yet arrested the story that
Keats's life was snuffed out by wicked re-
viewer One IS quite willing 10 agree with Goethe
that Byron lowered above hs age on discovering
that the cutting-up he received In THE Edinburgh
Review" only cost his lorlship an extra bottle
Of wine and the labor OF wrltlng-IIeaven for
give us II this is heresy-a very tiresome pas
qulnade.
To Balzac as to most other people in those days,
the critic was almost a magician. who made or I'M
made authors. actors. singers and statesmen. Yet
the corrupt inspiration OF the critc-ncver blasted
with n resentment scorching as In this book
was familiar to everybody. 1t puzzles one TO
imagine In these later days how influences the
springs OF which were so we'll known could be
dcemed powcrful But II we remember how COM
mon an error Is that OF putting cause for effect and
effect for cause perhaps the puzzle may be dis
entangled. Savages and children dread thunder;
the ordinary civilized man knows that 1t is the
lightning which does the mischief. He knows also
that the lightning Is only possible under certain
conditions OF the atmosphere. When the Partisan
journals which falZic scored numerically thun-
dered the true OF terror was not I'm the
empty sound, but in the atmosphere which writer's
and readers breathed, an atmosphere In which
genuine and natural things dropped and sickened
1t was an environment. to judge from Balzac's own
description In which only funguses could flourish
and the law Of beauty and prosperity as regards
funguses Is quite different from that evlnced in the
Towering shrub or the tall OAK Tree Balzac may
himself have been hurt In some OF his smaller
vanes by irresponsible censure, but all the period
cal writer's In France could neither make nor un-
make him as a man OF genius. He raised his head
above that heavy. Putonic air. and lived. at his
best, a life which was unknown to those who
grovelled below to whom fame was merely noto-
riety.
The law that action and reaction are equal an.