idea!'"[*]

[*] "Lettres a l'Etrangere."

This change of posture, though consonant, as Balzac says, with real
stability, is a source of bewilderment to the reader of his sayings
and doings, till it dawns upon him that, through pride, policy, and
the usual shrinking of the sensitive from casting their pearls before
swine, Balzac was a confirmed _poseur_, so that what he tells us is
often more misleading than his silence. Leon Gozlan's books are a
striking instance of the fact that, with all Balzac's jollity, his
camaraderie, and his flow of words, he did not readily reveal himself,
except to those whom he could thoroughly trust to understand him.
Gozlan went about with Balzac very often, and was specially chosen by
him time after time as a companion; but he really knew very little of
the great man. If we compare his account of Balzac's feeling or want
of feeling at a certain crisis, and then read what is written on the
same subject to Madame Hanska, Balzac's enormous power of reserve, and
his habit of deliberately misleading those who were not admitted to
his confidence, may be gauged.

George Sand tells us an anecdote which shows how easily, from his
anxiety not to wear his heart upon his sleeve, Balzac might be
misunderstood. He dined with her on January 29th, 1844, after a visit
to Russia, and related at table, with peals of laughter and apparently
enormous satisfaction, an instance which had come under his notice of
the ferocious exercise of absolute power. Any stranger listening,
would have thought him utterly heartless and brutal, but George Sand
knew better. She whispered to him: "That makes you inclined to cry,
doesn't it?"[*] He answered nothing; left off laughing, as if a spring