Book Description

Excerpt from The Law and Lawyers of Honore De Balzac: A Paper The connection between Literature and Law, while not always apparent to him who reads the first without some knowledge of the second, is nevertheless frequent and close. The history of law is the history of civilization, and law itself is only the blessed tie that binds human society together. The novel is the picture of society, and must either implicitly or explicitly be conditioned by the law of its time, just as it must reflect social conventions and customs. A great many great authors have studied law, though comparatively few of them have known how to use their knowledge. The novels of Dickens and Scott owe much of their humor and interest to their authors' skilful use of their information, but neither Dickens nor Scott surpassed Balzac in either information or skill. Brilliant writers, like cut diamonds, are many sided. Balzac's characters, as portrayed in his novels, included men and women of every walk of life, of every profession and occupation, of every grade of education, of every variation of virtue and vice. He played upon a harp of a thousand strings, though not all the spirits of just men made perfect, and in so doing he, more than any other novelist, has disclosed in his writings his own views upon every phase of the social organism. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."