BALZAC 



566 



BAMBOO 



BALZAC 



.rice as the old Monsieur Grandet pre- 

 ;ind the other characters grouped around 

 him show equal skill in pen portraiture. Had 

 Balzac written 

 but this one 

 novel, he would 

 gtill stand in the 

 rank as an 

 interpreter of hu- 

 man nature. 



Balzac was 

 born at Tours, on 

 May 16. 1799, of 

 a family which 

 could lay no 

 claim to rank or 

 to intellectual 

 distinction. He himself showed no sign of un- 

 usual ability in his somewhat neglected youth, 

 and was much more fond of playing truant and 

 of wandering about the country than of study- 

 ing. Though educated for the law, he firmly 

 refused to practice and held true to his desire to 

 live by his pen. His family could give him no 

 financial aid, and the public paid little or no 

 attention to his early novels; but he persisted, 

 and in 1829, with the publication of The 

 Chouans, it became evident that he was a writer 

 of real genius. Not content with simply turning 

 out one novel after another, planlessly, he 

 formed for himself a vast design, so ambitious 

 that a long lifetime would have been all insuffi- 

 cient for carrying it out. This was no less than 

 the writing of a series of novels, under the gen- 

 eral title of The Human Comedy, which should 

 picture every phase of human life in the 

 France of his day. 



His plan was left incomplete at his death, 

 but it had resulted in an astonishing number 

 of novels, containing those marvelous character- 

 delineations which entitle him to rank next 

 below Shakespeare in his power to describe 

 men's character. The person who reads any 

 considerable number of his books is conscious 

 of a longing for more "sweetness and light," 

 for he does not hesitate to introduce the most 

 sordid and even vicious of characters and hap- 

 penings; but with all of this he keeps his 

 emphasis true, and makes the better and more 

 ideal aspects of life the more attractive. The 

 best of his novels, in addition to the one men- 

 tioned above, are considered to be Old Gariot, 

 a study of a father's self-sacrificing and unre- 

 paid devotion to his daughters; Cousin Betty, 

 which treats of the love of a niece and an aunt 

 for the same man; Cousin Pons, which has as 



its theme the poor relation who has outstayed 

 his welcome; and Lost Illusions, a long, com- 

 plicated tale of Parisian life, with emphasis 

 on its baser elements. 



During the latter part of his life Balzac was 

 much under the influence of Madame Hanska, 

 a Polish lady with whom he was in love, and 

 this intense emotion interfered considerably 

 with his work. Only a few months before his 

 death he married her. A.MC c. 



BAMBOO ' , the popular name for the giant, 

 tree-like grasses of the tropics and adjacent 

 regions, the uses of which are exceedingly 

 numerous. There are about 200 species, found 

 in Asia, America and Africa, varying in height 

 from a few feet to in... JU^M m^Mu^wmv* 

 120 feet. The 

 largest bamboo 

 trees are some- 

 times three feet 

 around. The stem 

 of the bamboo, 

 like that of other 

 grasses, is 

 j o i n t e d , and 

 springs from a 

 jointed, under- 

 ground rootstock. 

 The plant usu- 

 ally grow^ tall 

 and erect, reach- 

 ing its full height 

 before putting 

 forth branches, 

 when the hori- 

 z o n t a 1 limbs 

 appear, forming 

 a dense thicket 

 near the top of 

 the stem. The 

 flowers hang in BAMBOO TREES 



large clusters, some species blossoming every 

 year, others only once in many years. The 

 bamboo stem, hard, light, elastic and hollow, 

 is the most interesting and useful part of this 

 plant. 



Uses. The bamboo rivals the palm in use- 

 fulness, and serves the people of Malay, India, 

 Ceylon, China, Japan and the Philippines in 

 innumerable ways. The bamboo wood, split 

 up, is made into floors, or rafters in dwelling 

 houses; sections of the stem form posts or col- 

 umns. Often the entire roof is made of bam- 

 boo wood. The Japanese have forests of these 

 trees, which they cultivate for building pur- 

 poses. Travelers in Japan tell of the most 



