The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1894-10-30
saOuTRE MER.U
A Partisan Idea of Paul BOurget and His
latest Work.
Especial Correspondence

Especial Correspondence
PARIS, Oct. 18.=When it was an
nounced last year that Paul Bourget
was going to visit America, and that
during his stay in the United States he
would try to pick up material for a
novel the scene of which should be
laid in New York, there were generally
expressed anticipations of something
good coming. Doubtless NJ Bourget
would hold up for the worlds inspec-
ton the faults and foibles of the Amer
leans as he saw them, but the work
would be clever, and his words would
not be likely to be malicious. By some
Americans Bourgeois plans were re-
garded with sort of childish glee, not
unlike that sometimes displayed by the
Japanese when it is apparent that some
Caucasian scholar, soldier, artist or
man of affairs is about to cOndesoend
to notice the empire of the chrysanthe-
mum. Even Chauncey NJ. Depew was
delighted at the thought of being i'm
paled, like butterfly on pin, by NJ
Bourgeois finely tempered pen.
Well, Bourget has visited America,
has returned, and his serial is running
in The Figaro here. / am told that it
is also appearing in one or two of the
great American newspapers It IS not
novel It is a sort of record of what he
saw, of the things said to him as a
guest by his hosts and by his fellow
guests. All classes come in for a share
of his satire, but those who treated him
best the plutocrats who make up $50
oiety, " receive most attention. Even
Mr.. Depew, who was so naively pleased
with the notion of Bourget novel, does
not escape. I wonder how he and all
the rest who have received Bourgeois
attentions like them now they got
them
When Mr.. Depew said he was glad
Bourget was about to visit America and
write about New York, he gave as
reason the fact that ga city is never SO
well advertised as when it is the scene
of a good and popular novel Think Of
how it would fl up the hotels and help
along the sale of souvenirs to novel
readersl'' In my judgment, Bourget' s
sOutre Mer, . as he calls his writing
on America, will not help to fill the
hotels in New Y ork kept by Mr. Depew' s
friends half so much as it viii help to
sell Bourgeois novels.
Bourget is immensely popular in
France, though he is not at all like any
other French novelist either in matter
or style Like Guy de Maupassant
however, he writes of the society of the
u1lCICCuLn CCAt01t Ii a AAcsLACA t--~e
Will make his works invaluable to the
future historian
In literature Bourget is both essayist
and novelist, and at first he was more
highly thought Of as the former than as
the latter. Five years ago he married
the daughter of an Antwerp shipbuilder,
and the pair are devoted to each other
They travel extensively and are often
away from Paris for months at time,
but they maintain a permanent resi-
dence IN the Rue Madame, situated IL
what was once the Latin quarter. A
popularity Of the house and its master
is that it contains two rooms, entirely
different IN appearance and furnishings,
both Of which are used by him as writ
ing rooms One he occupies when writ
ing fiction, the other when composing
essays and critical pieces
CHI LURAX.