Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1884-04-18

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Another thing that strikes one in encoun-
tering French literary men of the highest
grRde-a point, too, which struck Mr.. in
his talks with Daudet, Zola and Goncourt-
is the Chinese quality of their existence.
They see very little beyond their art their
observation, delicate and complete as it is in
a sense, is not very wide, and by no means
coextensive with modern French life. To
put the matter in few words, French pro-
vincial life is entirely neglected by the mod
ern writers; and of Partisan life the
corrupt and often the ignoble aspects seem
to captivate their attention, principally. This
is of course putting the case too strongly :;
but without entering into lengthy details it
is difficult to add the necessary qualifications
to the statement, and to enumerate the ex-
ceptions. The point I am coming to is this ::
The modern French literary men, especial
ly the novelists, are mostly men of humble
origin, who have come to Paris and made
their way by sheer force of talent, after
passing through an epoch of Bohemianism
The life of the students in the Latin Quarter
has no elements of social refinement; there
is no life in common, no communication
with the professors, no humanizing and pol
ishiug influence, such as are found in the
EQR1lSn uuIS6ESlLS5S 1OE 1u5LhuCS lie
young Frenchman leads a free and easy cafe
life, into which it is best not curiously to
inquire. This existence continues when the
student or provincial debutaut enters the
journalistic career, the invariable preface of
the French literary career. Except in rare
cases, decent society is closed to him until
he has made himself more or less of rep
utation. Then, after his first success he
will find certain literary salons open to him,
and these salons form stepping-stones to
other houses. But, in point of fact, he sell
dom avails himself of his opportunities, and
the explanation is simple: The literary
man. accustomed to his loose Bohemian life,
has not acquired the polish and tact necessa
~ to secure him an agreeable position in So
ciety; he feels himself i'll at ease in talking
with society ladies he does not understand
them, and he may perhaps despise them he
has not the social culture that enables him to
bring out his unquestionable intellectual su-
periority, and he feels irritated on that ac-
count; at any rate, coming late into society,
and finding its ways new and strange, he is
embarrassed and uncomfortable, and gene
rally throws society overheard. The conse-
quence is that he excludes from his field of
observation a very large portion of contem-
porsry life, and that not the least interesting,
and limits his vision to the mixed society that
occupies the front seats in the external life of
Paris, in all its varieties political life, theat
rical life boulevard and club life, high and
low vice, and the middle-class life, which he
knows about more or lees, owing to his orig
inal social position.
1 make an exception of Edmond de Con
court, who was an aristocrat before he be-
came a novelist and historians but it is q
mistake to think that either Daudet or Zola
goes into society. Zola lives like a hermit,
in his country house at Medan, nine months
out of the twelve-sulky, lumpy and uncom-
municative and when he comes to Paris he
visits none but his literary friends. Daudet,
likewise, is never encountered in any but
purely literary gatherings. He receives few
but literary men at his own house, and at the
houses of PaiIleron, Charcot, Madame Adam,
and of his publisher, Charpentier-almost
the only house where he goes-he meets no
one but authors and artists and the talk is
eternally and uniquely of literature and
style, and the comparison Of this mans tai
ent and that mans talent. AS DRudet said
the other night, their whole existence is in
the printed book; they live By it, and on it
and in it.