perfection of which he dreamed. "This Biographic Notice of Louis
Lambert," he wrote to Laure, "is a work in which I have tried to rival
Goethe and Byron, to out-do Faust and Manfred; and the tilt is not over
yet, for the proof sheets are not yet corrected. I do not know whether
I shall succeed, but this fourth volume of Philosophic Tales ought to
be a final reply to my enemies, and ought to show my incontestable
superiority." When his family became concerned over his precarious
situation, and the complications in which he had entangled himself,
Balzac answered their reproaches by prophesying the future: "Yes, you
are right," he said to Laure, "I shall not stop, I shall go on and on
until I attain my goal, and you will see the day when I shall be
numbered among the great minds of my country." Then, in the same
letter, he added, for his mother's benefit: "Yes, you are right, my
progress is real and my infernal courage will be rewarded. Persuade my
mother to think so too, dear sister; tell her to show me the charity of
a little patience; her devotion will be rewarded! Some day, I hope, a
little glory will pay her for everything! Poor mother! The imagination
with which she endowed me is a perpetual bewilderment to her; she
cannot tell north from south nor east from west; and that sort of
journeying is fatiguing, as I know from experience!

"Tell my mother that I love her as I did when I was a child. Tears
overcome me as I write these lines, tears of tenderness and despair,
for I foresee the future, and I shall need that devoted mother on the
day of my triumph! But when will that day come?"

Lastly, he explained the necessity of his isolation and excused himself
for it: "Some day, when my works are developed, you will realise that
it required many an hour to think out and write so many things; then
you will absolve me for all that has displeased you, and you will