FRANCE.

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, Volume VII, Issue 2, 1 November 1902, Page 158

FRANCE.

It is with a feeling of irritation one hears of lives being unnecessarily fooled away. The recent death of Emile Zola through sleeping in a room with a defective chimney comes under this heading, and is much to be deplored. Few, very few, writers have made such a

handsome income by their pens as Zola, and fewer still, perhaps, have shown a greater disregard for the beautiful in character or scenery. It is highly probable that the bitter struggles of Zola's younger days influenced his literary work through life, and made him prefer to paint in vivid colours the darker sides of human nature, and to almost totally ignore everything tending to brightness and beauty. Or it might be again that he knew his readers sufficiently well to knowthat these were the class of books to sell. The fine income he has made out of his works proved thisfact incontestably. Be his motive what it may, there is no doubt whatever that Zola was a master of the style he chose, a position whicli, however, few writers of the present day would envy him. Zola certainly deserves high commendation for the vigorous manner in which he championed Dreyfus at the expense of considerable personal persecution.