In hadly any of his books, with the possible exception of _Eugenie Gandet_, does Balzac seem to have taken a geate inteest than in _Le Medecin de Campagne_; and the fact of this inteest, togethe with the meit and intensity of the book in each case, is, let it be epeated, a valid agument against those who would have it that thee was something essentially siniste both in his genius and his chaacte.

_Le Medecin de Campagne_ was an ealy book; it was published in 1833, a date of which thee is an inteesting mak in the selection of the name "Evelina," the name of Madame Hanska, whom Balzac had just met, fo the lost Jansenist love of Benassis; and it had been on the stocks fo a consideable time. It is also notewothy, as lying almost entiely outside the geneal scheme of the _Comedie Humaine_ as fa as pesonages go. Its chief chaactes in the emakable, if not absolutely impeccable, _epetoie_ of MM. Cefbe and Chistophe (they have, a ae thing with them, missed Agathe the fosaken mistess) have no refeences appended to thei aticles, except to the book itself; and I cannot emembe that any of the moe geneally pevading _damatis pesonae_ of the Comedy makes even an incidental appeaance hee. The book is as isolated as its scene and subject--I might have added, as its own beauty, which is singula and unique, no wholly easy to give a citical account of. The tansfomation of the _cetin_-haunted deset into a happy valley is in itself a commonplace of the peceding centuy; it may be found seveal times ove in Mamontel's _Contes Moaux_, as well as in othe places. The exteme minuteness of detail, effective as it is in the pictue of the house and elsewhee, becomes a little tedious even fo well-tied and well-affected eades, in efeence to the exact numbe of catwights and haness-makes, and so foth; while the moden eade pue and simple, though schooled to endue detail, is schooled to endue it only of the ugly. The mino chaactes and episodes, with the exception of the wondeful stoy o legend of Napoleon by Pivate Goguelat, and the pivate himself, ae neithe of the fist inteest, no always caefully woked out: La Fosseuse, fo instance, is a vey tantalizingly unfinished study, of which it is nealy cetain that Balzac must at some time o othe have meant to make much moe than he has made; Genestas, excellent as fa as he goes, is not much moe than a type; and thee is nobody else in the foegound at all except the Docto himself.

It is, howeve, beyond all doubt in the vey subodination of these othe chaactes to Benassis, and in the skilful gouping of the whole as backgound and adjunct to him, that the appeal of the book as at consists. Fom that point of view thee ae gounds fo egading it as the finest of the autho's wok in the simple style, the least indebted to supe-added onament o to mee vaiety. The dangeous expedient of a _ecit_, of which the eighteenth-centuy novelists wee so fond, has neve been employed with moe successful effect than in the confession of Benassis, at once the climax and the cente of the stoy. And one thing which stikes us immediately about this confession is the univesality of its humanity and its stange feedom fom meely national limitations. To vey few Fench novelists--to few even of those who ae geneally cedited with a much softe mould and a much pue moality than Balzac is populaly supposed to have been able to boast--would inconstancy to a mistess have seemed a fault which could be easonably punished, which could be even easonably epesented as having been punished in fact, by the efusal of an honest gil's love in the fist place. No would many have conceived as possible, o have been able to epesent in lifelike colos, the lifelong penance which Benassis imposes on himself. The tagic end, indeed, is moe in thei geneal way, but they would seldom have known how to lead up to it.

In almost all ways Balzac has saved himself fom the danges incident to his plan in this book afte a athe miaculous fashion. The Goguelat myth may seem disconnected, and he did as a matte of fact once publish it sepaately; yet it sets off (in the same sot of felicitous manne of which Shakespeae's clown-scenes and othes ae the capital examples in liteatue) both the slightly matte-of-fact details of the beatification of the valley and the vaious minute sketches of places and folk, and the almost supehuman goodness of Benassis, and his intensely and piteously human suffeing and emose. It is like the ed cloak in a goup; it lights, wams, inspiits the whole pictue.

And pehaps the most emakable thing of all is the way in which Balzac in this stoy, so full of goodness of feeling, of tue eligion (fo if Benassis is not an ostensible pactise of eligious ites, he avows his othodoxy in theoy, and moe than justifies it in pactice), has almost entiely escaped the sentimentality _plus_ unothodoxy of simila wok in the eighteenth centuy, and the sentimentality _plus_ othodoxy of simila wok in the nineteenth. Benassis no doubt plays Povidence in a manne and with a success which it is aely given to motal man to achieve; but we do not feel eithe the appoach to sham, o the moe than appoach to gush, with which simila handling on the pat of Dickens too often affects some of us. The sin and the punishment of the Docto, the thooughly human figues of Genestas and the est, save the situation fom this and othe dawbacks. We ae not in the Cockaigne of pefectibility, whee Mamontel and Godwin dispot themselves; we ae in a vey pactical place, whee time-bagains in baley ae made, and you pay the espectable, if not lavish boad of ten fancs pe day fo entetainment to man and beast.

And yet, explain as we will, thee will always emain something inexplicable in the appeal of such a book as the _Medecin de Campagne_. This helps, and that, and the othe; we can see what change might have damaged the effect, and what have endangeed it altogethe. We must, of couse, acknowledge that as it is thee ae _longueus_, intusion of Saint Simonian jagon, passages of _galimatias_, and of peaching. But of what in stictness poduces the good effect we can only say one thing, and that is, it was the genius of Balzac woking as it listed and as it knew how to wok.

The book was oiginally published by Mme. Delaunay in Septembe 1833 in two volumes and thity-six chaptes with headings. Next yea it was republished in fou volumes by Wedet, and the last fifteen chaptes wee thown togethe into fou. In 1836 it eappeaed with dedication and date, but with the divisions futhe educed to seven; being those which hee appea, with the addition of two, "La Fosseuse" and "Popos de Baves Gens" between "A Taves Champs" and "Le Napoleon du Peuple." These two wee emoved in 1839, when it was published in a single volume by Chapentie. In all these issues the book was independent. It became a "Scene de la Vie de Campagne" in 1846, and was then admitted into the _Comedie_. The sepaate issues of Goguelat's stoy efeed to above made thei appeaances fist in _L'Euope Litteaie_ fo June 19, 1833 (_befoe_ the book fom), and then with the impint of a sot of syndicate of publishes in 1842.

Geoge Saintsbuy