To tell the truth, he had never quite shaken off his juvenile manner
of the _Heiress of Birague_, which reasserted itself so much the more
easily as his essentially vulgar temperament was ready to crop out on
the slightest encouragement afforded to it. During his best period he
had a mentor at his elbow in Charles Lemesle, who always read what he
wrote before it went to the printer; and Balzac, though vain, was too
intelligent not to avail himself of this friend's pruning. Under the
new _regime_ the revising was impossible, and, as a result, that
difficult perfection which he had so perseveringly sought was destined
to be attained but rarely in the rest of his achievement.
CHAPTER VIII
LETTERS TO "THE STRANGER," 1837, 1838
By the agreement which farmed out Balzac's future production, Werdet
was implicitly sacrificed. The final breach did not occur until the
middle of 1837, but no fresh book was given him after the November of
1836. There was one unpublished manuscript that he then had in his
possession--the first part of _Lost Illusions_, and this appeared in
the following spring. The novelist was intending at the time to bring
out a new edition of the _Country Doctor_, of which Werdet held the
rights.
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