The Wild Ass's Skin, And, the Quest of the Absolute (Classic Reprint) - Tapa blanda

Excerpt from The Wild Ass's Skin, And, the Quest of the Absolute

It has been observed, in no carping or hypercritical spirit, that passages of the book are somewhat high-flown in style. The fact is that Balzac had rather a tendency to this style, and only outgrew it, if he ever did outgrow it, by dint of its greater and greater unfitness for his chosen subjects. Here, if anywhere, it was excusable, just as here, if anywhere, the gigantic element in his genius found scope and play. There had been some inventories in literature before, and there have been many more since the description of the curiosity shop; but none, if we except the brief Shakespearian perfec tion of that in Clarence's dream, and none at all in a heaped and minute style, can approach this. The thing is night marish - you see the magots and the armor, the pictures and the statues, and among them all the sinister piece of sha green, with the inefi'aceable letters stamped on it.

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