"It is instructive to a student of Balzac to see how disconnected and out of proportion the story becomes in these later parts, -- showing plainly that the master's hand was in the habit of pruning away half, if not more, of what it had written, or -- to change the metaphor and give the process in his own language -- that he put _les grands pots dans les petits pots_, the quarts into the pint pots."