Vauvenargues was a soldier until he had both of his legs frozen during a winter campaign. This injury, from which he never recovered, forced him to leave the army. An attack of small-pox completed the ruin of his health, and thenceforth he led a secluded life devoted to literary pursuits. It is mainly as a novelist that Vauvenargues occupies a place in French literature, although his other works were held in high esteem by his contemporaries.
Edmond and Jules de Goncourt are names famous in French literary history. “Learning something from Flaubert, and teaching almost everything to Zola, they invented a new kind of novel, and their works are the result of a new vision of the world.... A novel of the Goncourts is made up of an infinite number of details, set side by side, every detail equally prominent.... French critics have complained that the language of the Goncourts is no longer the French of the past, and this is true. It is their distinction, the finest of their inventions, that in order to render new sensations, a new vision of things, they invented a new language.” (Mr. Arthur Symons.) Their journal is a gold mine from which present-day writers still carry away unacknowledged nuggets. M. Paul Bourget said of them: “Life reduced itself to a series of epileptic attacks, preceded and followed by a blank.”
Dostoievsky is considered by many critics the greatest of the great Russian novelists.
His health was completely shattered by his spending four years in a Siberian prison as a political offender. This terrible experience, however, served to create “Recollections of a Dead House” and “Buried Alive in Siberia.”
Anton Chekhov, the Russian novelist and short story writer, was only a little over twenty when he began to suffer from attacks of blood spitting. Although he believed that these came from his throat they were undoubtedly due to consumption. He was also a martyr to digestive trouble and headaches.
Chekhov possessed to an unusual degree the nervous energy which so frequently accompanies disease. He was a remarkably prolific author, so much so that in one of his letters he prophesies that he will soon have written enough to fill a library with his own works. Literature was, however, not his only pursuit. He also practiced medicine, although he refused to receive any remuneration for his services. He was public spirited and altruistic and organized an association for the relief of Siberian prisoners.
His books enjoy an immense vogue and have been translated into every language.
Whatever may be the future of English fiction, Charlotte Brontë’s novels will always command attention, by reason of their intensity and individuality. She suffered from permanent bodily weakness with various complications.
Some critics consider Emily Brontë superior to her sister. “Wuthering Heights” is a “thing apart, passionate, unforgettable.” This remarkable book was written while its author was dying of consumption.
That super-woman, known to fame as George Eliot, suffered all her life from frequent attacks of illness. In spite of her physical limitations she was capable of the most prolonged and intense application. Her numerous novels, dating from her thirty-sixth year, are only a part of her widespread intellectual activities.