by its contributor, Mr. A. T. Quiller-Couch, as well as by sundry
correspondents, one of whom pointed out that this chartered slanderer
"had not so much evidence to back his insinuations and assertions as
would wrap round a mustard seed." Mr. Welldon was also dealt with at
length and very ably by Mr. Quiller-Couch, the controversy in "The
Speaker" being prolonged until the latter part of November.[29] Ernest
Vizetelly was at first unaware of it, but a friend who, having little
acquaintance with literature, read that Liberal weekly chiefly for
its political articles, said to him one day: "You ought to see 'The
Speaker.' There's a lawyer who is defending Zola and your father in it
very vigorously. He is the kind of man your father ought to have had
as counsel at his trial." "A lawyer?" Vizetelly replied, "why, what is
his name?" "Oh! he only appends his initials 'A. T.' to his articles;
but I felt interested, and so I consulted the law-list at my club.
He's a Queen's counsel, by the way; and the only Queen's counsel whose
initials are A. T. is the Hon. Alfred Thesiger, so he undoubtedly is
the man." The truth, however, had suddenly dawned on Vizetelly, who
began to laugh as he answered: "The initials are A. T., you say; but
the writer puts Q. C. after them, does he not? I thought so. Well,
I am much obliged to you for your information, but you are all at
sea. Your Hon. Alfred Thesiger, Q. C., is none other than Mr. A. T.
Quiller-Couch!" Then, while his friend was expressing his astonishment,
Vizetelly began to think of fame.
In the controversy in question Mr. Welldon, who ended by admitting that
he had read only three of Zola's books, received the support of clerics
of various denominations. One of them, Canon MacColl, of Ripon, who
would seem to have been then very fond of writing to the newspapers on
all sorts of subjects, raised the old argument that even if Zola might
have had some justification for publishing, for instance, "La Terre"
in France, there could have been none for its issue in English and in
England by Henry Vizetelly. No doubt the canon was right. As was set
forth in a previous chapter the rural districts of England were and
are terrestrial paradises, where immorality and beastliness were and
are absolutely unknown. The observers who assert the contrary must be
either liars or deluded fools. The clergy who are to be found in every
village vouch for the high moral tone of their parishioners, and it
follows that one must not believe those who chance to sit on juries at
provincial assizes to try the various horrible cases, frequently from
the aforesaid rural districts, which are never reported by a decorous
press. Everything is for the best, then, in rural England, and the most
perfect men in the whole world are the truth-speaking bishops who begin
life in modest circumstances and end by leaving huge fortunes to their
families, the many-sided canons fond of joining in every controversy,
and the dogmatic clerical schoolmasters who take as their guide the
saying attributed, perhaps erroneously,[30] to Richelieu: "Give me six
lines written by the most honest man in the world, and I will find in
them enough to have him hanged."
Henry Vizetelly, to whom his son forwarded "The Speaker" while the
controversy continued, observed with some surprise Mr. Quiller-Couch's
assertion that the public conscience would not permit a repetition of
such proceedings as had been taken against him. He thereupon wrote to
Mr. Quiller-Couch saying that in his opinion the public conscience
could only find expression through the press, and that in the event
of a new prosecution the press would again remain silent until the
"National Vigilants" had secured a verdict, when it would once more
join in approving the "vindication of the law." That view was shared
by Vizetelly's son. Indeed, though Zola had been so well received in
London, even by some of the provincial journalists who attended the
Institute's Congress, though, too, newspaper men of education had come
to a truer perception of his aims, and several wrote very favourably
about his more recent books, it remained quite certain that he still
had numerous enemies on all sides. At the close of that year, 1893, or
more correctly on the first morning of the ensuing one, Henry Vizetelly
died, and immediately afterwards another controversy began, this time
in the London "Daily Chronicle." The chief features of the prosecutions
of 1888 and 1889 were recalled by Robert Buchanan, Frank Harris, and
George Moore, the first of whom dwelt on the attitude of the press
with respect both to those proceedings and to Zola generally. Various
protests arose, and, according to some people, it was quite untrue
that the English press had ever flung mud at Zola or his publisher.
The absurdity of that contention was made manifest by the publication,
at that very moment, of several articles in which all the old lies
and aspersions were repeated. These, it is true, appeared mostly in
provincial journals; but two or three London prints did not hesitate
to befoul yet once again the dead publisher as well as the recently
banqueted novelist, whom G. W. Story, when recounting the controversy
in "The New York Tribune," foolishly described as being "the most lewd
writer in the world." It must be said, to Story's credit, that his
article was a signed one, whereas the valiant scribes of the British
press remained anonymous. They found, undoubtedly, that "anonymity in
journalism" had its advantages, and wisely decided to cling to it.
Since that time, however, the practice of signing critical articles has
spread considerably and may some day become the general rule.
[1] Sherard, _l. c._, p. 228.
[2] His play "Madeleine" (originally called "La Madeleine") which he
had vainly offered to the Gymnase and Vaudeville theatres in 1866, and
which he had afterwards turned into a novel, "Madeleine Férat" (see
_ante_, pp. 99 and 107) was produced with indifferent success at the
Théâtre Libre in 1889--first performance, May 2.
[3] The writer believes it is called the Schveninger cure.
[4] About $600.
[5] "Le Rêve," Paris, Charpentier, 1893, 18mo, 310 pages. Some copies
on Dutch, India, and Japanese papers. Eighty-eighth thousand in 1893;
one hundred and sixteenth thousand in 1903. Illustrated edition:
Flammarion, 1888, 4to; illustrations by Carlos Schwob and Métivet;
one hundred and fifty copies on Dutch paper. Was sold in parts at 10
centimes. Jeanniot had illustrated the story in "La Revue Illustrée,"
which paid Zola one thousand pounds for the serial rights.
[6] First performed at the Opéra Comique, June 18, 1891.
[7] M. Eugène Fasquelle had now acquired an interest in M.
Charpentier's publishing business, which he ultimately purchased.
[8] This was the result of having rid himself of his obesity.
[9] The allusion is to the house in the Rue de Bruxelles (21 _bis_),
which Zola made his Paris home until his death.
[10] In his later years Zola kept Christmas and New Year's Day at
Médan, and then usually had a house-party there.
[11] "La Bête Humaine," Paris, Charpentier, 1890, 18mo, 419 pages. Some
copies on Dutch, India, and Japanese papers. Eighty-eighth thousand in
1893; ninety-ninth thousand in 1903.
[12] It is notorious that Taine, who led a section of the Academicians,
that of the "university men," opposed Zola because he used vulgar and
even slang words in some of his writings. Taine, moreover, was in full
sympathy with the aristocratic element in the Academy with respect to
its endeavours to make the institution a kind of deadly-lively social
club.
[13] At subsequent elections he was defeated by Pierre Loti, Henri de
Bornier, Thureau-Dangin, Ferdinand Brunetière, etc.
[14] "L'Argent," Charpentier, 1891, 18mo, 451 pages. Some copies on
Dutch, India, and Japanese papers; eighty-third thousand in 1893;
eighty-ninth thousand in 1903.
[15] "Journal des Goncourt," Vol. VIII, p. 141.
[16] Towards the close of the summer he allowed himself a holiday and
repaired to the Pyrenees with his wife. It was then (September) that he
first visited Lourdes and was struck by the sight of the pilgrimages.
It immediately occurred to him that they would supply a good subject
for a book, and to study them more closely he returned to Lourdes in
the summer of 1892.
[17] The writer must admit that he has seen neither, but he has found
one catalogued under the names of M. Claretie, the other under that of
M. Camille Etievant. Both had appeared before 1885. It is of course
possible that Zola had never heard of them.
[18] "La Débâcle," Paris, Charpentier and Fasquelle, 1892, 18mo, 620
pages; one hundred and seventy-sixth thousand in 1893; two hundred and
seventh thousand in 1903. Illustrated edition: Paris, Flammarion, n.
d., 4to, 527 pages; illustrations by Jeanniot; ninety copies on India,
Japanese, and Dutch papers. The Bavarian Captain Tanera attacked the
book in "Le Figaro," September 19, 1892, and his communication was
reprinted by Lemerre, 8 pages, 8vo. Zola's answer to him, "Retour de
Voyage," was also published by Lemerre, 1892, 18mo, 21 pages; forty
copies printed, all numbered, those bearing odd numbers being on Dutch
paper.
[19] Abbreviated from Sherard, _l. c._, p. 251 _et seq._
[20] It paid him £1,400 = about $7,000.
[21] "Le Docteur Pascal," Paris, Charpentier and Fasquelle, 1893, 18mo,
390 pages; some copies on special papers; eighty-eighth thousand in
1893, soon after publication; ninety-fourth thousand in 1903.
[22] A translation of the address in question (made by the present
writer) appeared in "The New Review," No. 50, July, 1893, under the
title of "Life and Labour." Besides expounding the gospel of work, Zola
answered the writers of Brunetière's _coterie_ who had started the
nonsensical cry of the "bankruptcy of Science."
[23] The writer holds several letters written to him by Zola at various
times, expressing similar reliance on his judgment. To print them all
would be to exaggerate their importance. The above will suffice as a
specimen.
[24] Mr. Petilleau has also been for many years President of the
National Society of French Masters in England. He is French professor
at Charterhouse.
[25] Sir Walter himself related that when "L'Assommoir" came into his
hands he sat up all night to read it, unable to put it down until he
had reached the last word.
[26] Vizetelly met him at Calais.
[27] From a draft of the French text.
[28] "National Observer": "Realist and Ranter," October 14, 1893. Pp.
551-552.
[29] See notably the issues of October 14 and 28, 1903.
[30] See Édouard Fournier's "L'Esprit dans l'Histoire," Paris, 1860, p.
229.
XI
A CRITICAL GLANCE
1893
Zola's short stories--His early novels--His sense of poetry and his
realism--Poetry and science--The futility of literary dogmas--The
law of change--The influence of science on literature--Why Zola
became a novelist--His attitude towards life and his fellow-men--The
Rougon-Macquart series--The order in which it was published
and the order in which it should be read--"Rougon-Macquart"
and "Robert Macaire"--A survey of the volumes--Their human and
animal characters--Great variety of their contents--How they were
prepared--Zola's alleged ignorance--His handwriting--His style--Some
fine pages--Some blunders--Various critical remarks--The series as a
whole--A living psychology--Some remarks on translations--A glance at
Zola as a playwright.
In previous chapters one has enumerated the many books--novels, volumes
of tales and essays--put forth by Zola from the time he began to write
until he completed the Rougon-Macquart series. That completion marks
a date in his career, and it is now fit one should glance back at the
work he had accomplished. His minor writings may be noticed briefly.
His first volume, "Les Contes à Ninon," suggests the influence of
Victor Hugo largely tempered by that of Alfred de Musset, with here
and there, too, some sign of incipient realism. It is immediately
apparent that much time and care were spent on the writing of these
tales, the style of which is often perfect and always charming. The
companion volume, "Nouveaux Contes à Ninon," published ten years later,
is inferior to the earlier one, much of the matter contained within its
covers being but newspaper work. Nevertheless "Les Quatre Journées de
Jean Gourdon" is in its way admirable; and in "Le Petit Manteau bleu"
one recognises the spirit which presided over the former tales. Realism
is often quite manifest in this second volume, and the explanations
given in its preface are almost superfluous, for one can easily tell
that it is the work of a man who has passed through the furnace,
whereas the first volume was all youth, buoyant, aspiring, with wings
unclipt.
Zola's other tales, those in the volumes entitled "Le Capitaine
Burle" and "Naïs Micoulin," belong to a later date and are very
different from the early ones. If the influence of the poets appears
in them at intervals, it is in diction rather than ideas. Even the
poetic suggestion lurking in the tale "Pour une nuit d'amour," which
Poe might almost have written, can only be traced with difficulty,
for it is wrapped in a ghastly realism. The story of "Nantas" is
perhaps the best of these later little efforts, as it is certainly
the most powerful; but "Naïs Micoulin" is also one of the present
writer's favourites, perhaps because, whatever its ardour, it does
no violence to possibilities. Placed beside the tales of Guy de
Maupassant, those of Zola, in spite of all the naturalism of their
details, strike one as being more romantic, more imaginative; and
this is as it should be, for Zola was largely a child of the sun,
whereas Maupassant, however passionate his temperament, was always a
Norman, deficient in the purely imaginative faculty but possessed of
great shrewdness--intuition, so to say,--which assisted his powers
of observation and his superb craftsmanship. Thus he excelled in
transcribing the human document such as it appears to most Northern
minds.
As it is with Zola's short stories so it is with his earlier novels:
"La Confession de Claude" is a struggle between poetry and reality, the
presentment of a soul longing for the empyrean but forced to surrender
to all the horrors of degradation. The fragmentary "Vœu d'une Morte"
contains indications of the same battle continuing. "Les Mystères de
Marseilles" is a thing apart; but, at last, in "Thérèse Raquin" and
"Madeleine Férat" realism triumphs brutally and in its first victorious
hour blackens the canvas to excess. Average truth is disregarded--as
Zola himself admits--and the agony is piled on to the point of
nightmare. This is done, perchance, by the realist in Zola in order
that no loophole may be left for the poet, also within him, to rise
again.
But take the Rougon-Macquart series, and there, amid all the realism of
twenty volumes, a revival of the poetic sense will be found displaying
itself repeatedly. Remember the idyll of Silvère and Miette, that of
Marjolin and Cadine, that of Angélique and Félicien, that of Serge
and Albine, the Paradou, Hélène and Henri, the vistas of Paris from
the heights of Passy, the love of Goujet for Gervaise, even that of
Georges Hugon for Nana, the epic march of the miners in "Germinal," the
epic charge of the cavalry at Sedan, Clotilde's communion with herself
while giving suck to her babe, and all the other instances. There may
be no trace of poetry and romance in "Thérèse Raquin," but Zola when
writing that book must have known full well that he had only scotched,
not killed, his poetic tendencies. To understand him aright, let us
remember that he made his _débuts_ at a time when science was enlarging
her domain daily. For him she exercised a fascination equal to that
of art. In his youth he had turned eagerly to certain scientific
studies even while he was steeping himself in poetry, and later he
devoured Flourens, Zimmermann, translations of the great scientists
of England and Germany. He saw that there was often a deep poetry
in science; he dreamt of making it manifest,--of going further,--of
associating science and art, of establishing their co-relation,
welding them together even in instances when to some folk they seemed
to be antagonistic. His nature, as one has remarked previously, was a
compound, a hybrid one, by no means unique, but such as is not often
observed. "Lewis Carroll" supplies a somewhat approximate instance:
in him one found the mathematician elbowing the romancer, only he did
not dream of importing "Euclid" into "Alice." Zola, in doing so, or
rather in doing something similar, was not entirely influenced by his
own special nature, but was carried along by the spirit of his age, in
which everything tended towards science. Those who remember Darwin and
Faraday and Huxley and the others, and the thirst that came on so many
young men in those days, will not gainsay it.
The literary critics declared, of course, and many of them declare
still, that Zola was altogether wrong. Regarding Art as being so
distinct, so different from Science that no amalgam could be effected,
they laid down and still lay down certain rules as being necessary to
salvation. That attitude was and is preposterous to the open mind which
holds that no dogmas are of any account, and that of those who frame
them one may say in Dante's words:
"Non ragionam di lor, ma guarda e passa."
It is true that some critics have asserted that if there be no finality
in science there is a finality in art. But in fiction, with which
alone one is concerned here, the form has changed repeatedly, and on
each such occasion the loud protests raised by the representatives of
old and recognised schools have proved ineffectual. One rule, one dogma
after another, has been set aside, and still and ever the evolution has
continued. To say that the artist in fiction must do this and must not
do that is to expose oneself to the ridicule, at times, even of one's
contemporaries, and certainly of posterity. Take a comparatively recent
epoch and think of the dogmas and the protests brought forward by the
Classiques in their great contest with the Romantiques in France, and
remember who, in the end, were vanquished. Thus men of conservative
views may protest, but if there be a good cause for any evolution,
which one or another writer may essay, it will end by triumphing in
spite of all the opposition offered to it.
The art of the novelist has been often likened to that of the painter,
but it does not follow that this is the only possible comparison.
A novelist may liken himself to a sculptor, in fact to anybody he
chooses. Nothing, moreover, is final. The world, as modern scientists
have just rediscovered, and as Heraclitus asserted three and twenty
centuries ago, is not a being but a becoming. Change is the universal
law, even in matter; and if some minds, imprisoned within narrow
ideas and formulas, find it impossible to contemplate the possibility
of certain changes, they must yield to the broader minds for which
everything is possible. The world's changes are reflected in its
literature. Science within our own time has profoundly modified the
study and the writing of history. As for the novel, the Romanticists
spoke no last word, for it was not in their power to do so. Whether
Zola had arisen or not, it was fatal that the novel should at last
embrace many things which earlier writers of fiction had never dreamt
of including in it, that it should, in a word, follow the trend of the
modern mind.
Among writers, moreover, there are always many whose aim is not mere
amusement. Some openly declare instruction, enlightenment, to be their
purpose. Some are only half conscious of their mission, some not at
all, and it happens not unfrequently that a lesson is conveyed in books
where it has been never intended. At one time the drama was the form
of literature which appealed most successfully to the greater number.
The novel at last acquired a similar position, and it followed that
the writer who wished to reach the greater number had to approach
them as a novelist. That had been done long before the time of Zola,
who was both a writer with a purpose and one who wished to reach the
majority. Now, if an author desire to bring about some reformation of
the community, it is natural that he should begin by portraying it.
If he wish to elucidate certain social, scientific, and psychological
problems for the common good, it is essential that he should in the
first case state them. In that event, say some pedants, he must confine
himself to treatises of the accepted form. But the author answers no,
for such treatises would not reach the greater number, and his purpose
would then remain unfulfilled. To reach them he must approach them in
the only literary form for which they care: he must embody his views in
novels. "I have, in my estimation," said Zola, "certain contributions
to make to the thought of the world on certain subjects, and I have
chosen the novel as the best means of communication. To tell me that I
must not do so is nonsense. I claim it as my right, and who are you to
gainsay it?"
But let us pass to another point. The oft-repeated assertion that
Zola confined himself to portraying the ulcers and sores of life is
contrary to fact. He undoubtedly found more evil than good in the
community, and he insisted on the evil because it was that which needed
remedying. But he blamed nobody for extolling the higher side of life.
He denounced the writers who cast a deceptive and often poisonous
glamour over the imperfections of the world, he railed at many of
the people who pretended to be very good, for he was not deceived by
hypocrisy and cant; but, at the same time, he never held that mankind
was naturally evil. He attributed its blemishes to its social systems,
its superstitions, the thousand fallacies amid which it was reared, and
his whole life was a battle with those fallacies, those superstitions,
and those systems.
As he contended against so many generally accepted opinions it was
inevitable that his work and even his purpose should be greatly
misjudged. Critics took in turn one and another volume of his
Rougon-Macquart series, and pronounced condemnation on it. It was
only when, after long years, the series was at last finished that
some little justice was shown to the author. It should be remembered
that no volume of the series is in itself a really complete work. The
series indeed is the book, the volumes are but chapters of it. Besides,
they ought not to be taken nowadays in the order in which they were
originally published. It occasionally happens that writers are unable
to produce their works in proper sequence. There have been instances
when the second and fourth volumes of some literary undertaking have
been published before the first and the third. So it was with the
Rougon-Macquart novels. Zola was no walking encyclopædia. Every now
and again it happened that he was not ready for the volume which by
rights should have followed the one he had just finished. He lacked,
at the moment, sufficient knowledge of the subject which that next
volume was to embrace. Or else, as also happened at times, his fancy or
his feelings or some combination of circumstances carried him onward,
inducing him to skip a volume for a time. But he always reverted to it
afterwards, like an author who, writing not twenty volumes, but one,
has passed over some troublesome chapter, yet harks back and writes
it at last, well knowing that his work will lack completeness and
intelligibility if the gap be not filled up.
In the chronicle of Zola's career given in our previous chapters, the
Rougon-Macquart volumes have been mentioned in their chronological
order; but the example of the critics who, even since the completion
of the series, have followed that same order in judging Zola's work is
not one to imitate. By adopting that system one may certainly trace the
variations in Zola's general style over a term of years; but if the
series is to be judged as a whole one must take its sections in the
order in which the author himself desired they should be read. This he
indicated in "Le Docteur Pascal," and confirmed by word of mouth to
the present writer; and it is unfortunate, perhaps, that the French
publishers should still "list" the volumes chronologically, thereby
leading many readers astray. Some volumes of course--notably the first
and the last--occupy their proper places in the lists, but others have
to be taken in a very different order.