; the _Scenes of Parisian Life_, with the
peculiar tastes, vices and temptations of capitals, that is to say,
with passion unbridled. The interpretation assigned to these
categories is a fanciful one. Passions are born and bred and produce
their full effect in every place and phase of life. They may assume
varying forms in divers surroundings, but such variation has no
analogy with change of age. Only by forcing the moral of his stories
was the author able to give them these secondary significations.
Indeed, he was often in straits to decide in which category he ought
to class one and another novel. _Pere Goriot_ was originally in the
_Scenes of Parisian Life_, where it has a certain _raison d'etre_.
Ultimately, it found its way into the _Scenes of Private Life_. And a
greater alteration was made by removing _Madame Firmiani_ and the
_Woman-Study_ from the _Philosophic Studies_, and placing them also in
the _Private Life_ series.
Be it granted that the plan of the _Comedy_ was grandiose in its
scope; it was none the less doomed in its execution to suffer for its
ambitiousness, since an attempt was made to subordinate imagination to
science in a domain where the rights of imagination were paramount.
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