[M. ZOLA is understood to have accepted an invitation to the
Institute of Journalists' Conference in London.]
Fairer subject never rose our graphic pens to task all,
Than the presence (and paper) amidst the Children of Letters, the
new Grub Street geniuses, the Poets and Press-men and penny-a-liners,
the Sages and "all the rages," the Naturalistic Novelists
and New Humourists, the literary "Strong Men" and Anti-Sentimentalists,
the Impressionists and Symbolists, and Stylists,
and Superior Sniffers, and "Manly" Muse-hunters, and Man-despising
Mugwumps, and Minor Minstrels and Minor-Minstrel-flouters,
and would-be Laureates, and would-be-laureate-exterminators,
and Mummer-Idolators and Mummer-Iconoclasts, and
Up-to-date Oracles, and _Fin-de-siecle_ obscurantists, of the
pyramidal author of _Dr. Pascal_!
* * * * *