Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1895-06-16
INTERVIEW WITH zoLA.
The Man of the Iron Pen Talks
 Freely to an American.
Hts Interesting Personality-His Ways of Living and Working, and How He Has Turned Out Such an Incredible
 Nurzsser of Novels.
TcoPYRloHT, 1895.

pitilcss, '.the master, "the teacher" :" 4sthe animal, "the only one who sees life as life is, 'sthe mountebank, !" "the sublime"-Zola sat in low chair in his billiard room, talking earnestly.
 He is not the large man whom we have been taught to expect to see. His head only is big. He is barely of medium height, and n heavy stoop--like that of man who has been bent by great weight of heavy work-lowers his shoulders and makes him appear even shorter than he really is. His face with its pallid yellow, in front of which the still very dark beard stands forth with almost startling emphasis; with it's painfully deep and clearly de- fined furrows running across the brow and down at the sides of the round, blunt nose, with it's deep eyes sunk in hollows like those of man who does not sleep well, and obscured by pro digious eyeglasses; with it's nervously switching and impatient lips-is the face of man who worries about his work and worries about the world which that work deals with and con- oerns. His hands and feet are the small hands and feet of delicate dilettante. His neck is the big neck of the hard worker. His frame, covered by clothes which fit better than those the ordi- nary Frenchman wears, seems to indi- cate strength which has been overtaxed but still real and very great strength. A nasty glance makes Zola look more like man who could run | great bank successfully than like man who could teach great lessons in a novel. But the second glance reveals the novelist, after it has first revealed the more evident student and scholar. Also, if he looks like a banker he looks, too, like banker whose bank has failed, and in failing, brought distress to the innocent through no fault of his own. His is not the face of a misanthrope, but it is the face of a man who sor- rows. Perhaps this is the result of life in which there has been little pleas ure. Perhaps it is facial deception an expression as misleading as that of the thief who looks like a clergyman. At any rate it is impossible, while you are in his presence, to imagine zola re ally happy. But I must emphasize the fact that the lines in his face are those of the man who ia sad, not of the cynie or pessinist.
 ''Yes, shall almost certainly go to America" he said gravely, but with that great nervous rapidity which forces linn, even when he is making q public speech, to go back and repent words over which he has stumbled.
 ''Shall youadd New York to the cities which arc to be treated in your new series?a l asked, amazed at the possi- bility which his remark had opened up.
 sL will not say yes, and l will not say mo-" he replied. '.That series began with 'Lourdes.' Its next book will be Rome After that will come Paris Watether Paris will be followed by 'London' and London by New York Ecannot say yet. I.have thought,o of it. If I decide to carry out this planaI shalls make a very careful study of my field. Iithink I shall not make mis- takes which will amuse you. 1 try to avoid mistakes. l study my subjects very ninutely before I take them up, and am most careful. SR5 T
 And with that he dismissed what is apparently the most important piece of literary news of the year .Zola go- ing to America to write anovel about New York; One wonders how this lit erary surgeon would vivisect the city which has stolen his books without even so much as 'by your leave,p and from whom he has never received penny except four thousand dollars from the New York Herald for "Lourdesp--in pay The literary piracy of American publishers is sore spot with him.
 It would be impossible to give bet ter idea of Zola's methods. of work than he himself gives in this descrip- 4ion of the way he has written and is writing 'Romesr In a sense his physical hard work stops when he gets to the point where he can actually be- gin 10 write-when he has amassed his material This point reached, he only works three hours a day. In those three hours he produces, on an average, 7,5oo words-not very great task, ane thinks, but moments computa- ton will show that it means 54.750 words year, for Zola works every day. "A line for each day" the motto sn Latin which Is carved in letters of gold over his mantelpiece at Medan, And it is this method of regularity in Ais4worlS, set above mere energy that has enabled him to realize the greatest ambition accomplished by any writer living to-day. His Rougon- -Macquart series. consisting of more than twenty great volumes, was completed when he wrote s'Finis" at the bottom of the last page of Doctor Paseal,r and he had never wavered from this system since tileA day when in his twenty eighth year he made up his mind to attempt the great task. He was fifty-two when # was Finished. E
 u was Balzac's vast series--the Hu- man Comedy which saroused Zola's ambition to himself produce a great series. Fromhis earliest youth he had loved. certain branches of science, and of these. .physiology was dearest to him. A was through his studies of physiology fiat he decided that the greatest prob 1r,, tt.l, or, yf,1, fS fba b,,t,,ea r,