[*] Played for the first time March 13, 1910, at the Odeon Theatre.
In the miscellanies one meets with much that is curious, amusing, and
instructive, quite worthy to figure in the _Comedy_--witty dialogues,
light stories containing deductions _a la_ Sherlock Holmes or Edgar
Allan Poe, plenty of satire, sometimes acidulated as in his _Troubles
and Trials of an English Cat_, and theories about everything,
indicative of extensive reading, large assimilation and quick
reasoning. The miscellanies really stand to the novels in the relation
of a sort of prolegomenon. They serve for its better understanding,
and are agreeable even for independent study.
CHAPTER XV
VALUE OF THE WORK
The aim of an author whose writings are intended to please must be
ethical as well as aesthetic, if he respects himself and his readers.
He wishes the pleasure he can give to do good, not harm. The good he
feels capable of producing may be limited to the physical or may
extend beyond to the moral; but it will be found in his work in so far
as the latter is truly artistic.
Balzac's prefaces and correspondence are so many proofs that he
rejected the pretensions of literature or any other art to absolute
independence.
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