[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.