102 SELECTED ESSAYS FROM LAY SERMONS 



and, strange as the paradox may sound, could not live 

 unless it died. 



In the wonderful story of the Peaii de Chagrifi, the 

 hero becomes possessed of a magical wild ass' skin, which 

 yields him the means of gratifying all his wishes. But its 

 surface represents the duration of the proprietor's life; and 

 for every satisfied desire the skin shrinks in proportion to 

 the intensity of fruition, until at length life and the last 

 handbreath of the peaii de chagrin, disappear with the 

 gratification of a last wish. 



Balzac's studies had led him over a wide ransje of thought 

 and speculation, and his shadowing forth of physiological 

 truth in this strange story may have been intentional. At 

 any rate, the matter of life is a veritable peau de chagrin, 

 and for every vital act it is somewhat the smaller. All 

 work implies waste, and the work of life results, directly or 

 indirectly, in the waste of protoplasm. 



Every word uttered by a speaker costs him some physi- 

 cal loss; and, in the strictest sense, he burns that others 

 may have light — so much eloquence, so much of his body 

 resolved into carbonic acid, water, and urea. It is clear 

 that this process of expenditure cannot go on forever. But, 

 happily, the protoplasmic peau de chagrin differs from 

 Balzac's in its capacity of being repaired, and brought 

 back to its full size, after every exertion. 



For example, this present lecture, whatever its intellec- 

 tual worth to you, has a certain physical value to me, which 

 is, conceivably, expressible by the number of grains of 

 protoplasm and other bodily substance wasted in main- 

 taining my vital processes during its deliver}^ My pean de 

 chagrin will be distinctly smaller at the end of the discourse 

 than it was at the beginning. By and by, I shall probably 

 have recourse to the substance commonlv called mutton, 



