I do not know whether
I shall succeed, but this fourth volume of Philosophic Tales ought to
be a final reply to my enemies, and ought to show my incontestable
superiority." When his family became concerned over his precarious
situation, and the complications in which he had entangled himself,
Balzac answered their reproaches by prophesying the future: "Yes, you
are right," he said to Laure, "I shall not stop, I shall go on and on
until I attain my goal, and you will see the day when I shall be
numbered among the great minds of my country." Then, in the same
letter, he added, for his mother's benefit: "Yes, you are right, my
progress is real and my infernal courage will be rewarded. Persuade my
mother to think so too, dear sister; tell her to show me the charity of
a little patience; her devotion will be rewarded! Some day, I hope, a
little glory will pay her for everything! Poor mother! The imagination
with which she endowed me is a perpetual bewilderment to her; she
cannot tell north from south nor east from west; and that sort of
journeying is fatiguing, as I know from experience!
"Tell my mother that I love her as I did when I was a child.
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