Honore de Balzac 
Gondreville Mystery (Une Tenebreuse Affaire), And, the Muse of the Department 

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. I have often felt disposed to ask those who would assert Balzac’s absolute infallibility as a gynaecologist to give me a reasoned criticism of the heroine of this novel. I do not en tirely figure to myself Dinah de la Baudraye. It is per fectly possible that she should have loved a sweep like Lousteau; there is certainly nothing extremely unusual in a woman loving worse sweeps even than he. But would she have done it, and having done it, have also done what she did afterwards? These questions may be answered differently; I do not answer them in the negative myself, but I cannot give them an affirmative answer with the conviction which I should like to show.