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IT

ZOLA AND LITERARY NATURALISM.1

T is now some twenty-five years ago since the preface of La Fortune des Rougon announced the programme of that series of novels, if we may call them so, which is just coming to a close with Docteur Pascal in the columns of the Revue Hebdomadaire. In that preface, Zola undertook to show how "the slow succession of accidents of nerve and blood declare themselves in a race as the result of a primary organic lesion, and determine according to his surroundings in each of the individuals that compose it, the feelings, desires, passions, all the human manifestations, natural and instinctive, to whose products we give the conventional names, virtues and vices." This has suggested to others a remark of Taine, by which it was perhaps suggested to Zola himself, that "virtue and vice are products, like vitriol and sugar." But Zola seems, at least at the outset, to have taken it with less reserve than its originator. So in the nineteen volumes before us, we have what he calls "the natural and social history of a family under the Second Empire." They are to be, according to his essay, “Le Roman Experimental," works of the most thorough realism, minute studies of social phenomena for each trait in which the author shall be able to cite his authority, "human documents" in short. So with indefatigable conscientiousness he studies the workings of a locomotive from the engine cab, shares the life of the farm,

'La Débâcle, par Emile Zola. Paris. 1892.

and even makes a pilgrimage to Lourdes, all in the interest of "naturalism"-and perhaps of advertisement.

And yet, in spite of it all, in spite of himself, Zola is not a naturalist, but rather the greatest of living French idealists, and, since Victor Hugo's death, first of her prose poets. This was most interestingly brought out, in its time, by Symonds, in his review of La Bête Humaine.1 It impresses itself not alone on readers of Le Rêve, but in another and higher kind in La Terre, in Germinal and in La Débâcle. This seems to us fortunate. Zola is a genius; his theory is wrong, but his literary instinct is right. He rises above his ideal, and earns a palm of praise while his scholars, too faithful to his teachings, are apt to weary and dishearten.

The vast range of Zola's social studies becomes apparent if we review, merely in the briefest way, the central subjects of his volumes. He aims to cover all France. The family-tree of the Rougon-Macquart, affixed to Une Page d'Amour, exhibits representatives of this family within three generations, in almost every social sphere. La Fortune des Rougon, La Conquête de Plassans, La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret show us life in provincial towns. The farm furnishes the scene of La Terre, and, in a measure, for La Joie de Vivre. Germinal introduces us to a great miners' strike; Le Ventre de Paris tells of the Paris market gardens and the Halles. La Curée deals with the financial debauch that followed the coup d'état, and Son Excellence Eugène Rougon takes up the parable of political corruption. Nana introduces to the inner shrine of the goddess of lubricity those who care to see its foulness, while L'Assommoir is a temperance tale of the Paris workmen. The small shop-keepers are represented in Pot-Bouille, and the great establishments like Au Bon Marche and Au Louvre are spread before us in Au Bonheur des Dames. La Bête Humaine is a railroad epic, L'Euvre deals with artist life, L'Argent with the stock exchange, La Débâcle with the army, which takes, whether he will or no,

'Fortnightly Review, October, 1891.

a considerable place in every Frenchman's life. Religious mysticism forms the subject of that exquisite idyl Le Rêve. Passionate jealousy is analyzed in Une Page d'Amour, celibacy in La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret, and clerical ambition in La Conquête de Plassans. And so we might go on, but surely enough has been said to show that an honest effort has been made to make this series a microcosmic picture of French life under the star of the third Napoleon.

Few men have the courage to form a literary plan that a quarter of a century of unremitting, pains-taking labor shall not suffice to complete. Yet the plan of this series was clearly thought out from the first. Fewer still, having formed such a plan, have the endurance to carry it to an end. But perhaps Zola's is the unique instance in which the popular interest in the author and his work has increased to the last. Critics may weary of him. A brilliant essayist, writing but a few months ago, tells us that Zola is a matter of yesterday1; but on the other hand the French editors, consulted by the Petit Journal as to what forty men should form the real "Academy" in place of the forty self-elected, found that Zola headed the poll with 1,193 votes, while the largest number accorded to any competitor was 774 for Taine, and Daudet could muster but 718. But beyond this, we have the clearest evidence that Zola's popularity is not waning, in the sales of his works. The first six of the series have attained an average sale of less than 32,000. No volume that follows has fallen below 44,000. Leaving aside the somewhat phenomenal success of L'Assommoir and Nana, with sales of 127,000 and 166,000 respectively, we have for the next six of the series an average of over 67,000, or, including Nana and L'Assommoir, an average of 87,000. But the four following, while containing no such conspicuous success, yet averaged 90,000, and La Débâcle, his last work, though for the shortest time on the market, already exceeds all the others with 176,000 at the time of our writing. Certainly this looks very much as

'Portraits d'Ecrivains, par Réné Doumic. Paris. Delaplane. 1892.