The evening times., 1897-05-03
ZOLA IGNORED BRUNETIERE
French Novelist Declines to Reply
to Sharp Criticism.
Accused of Ignorance und Inac-
curacy, He Smiles Smile
of DiSdatn.

New York, May IA Paris cable to the
Herald says:
LIE Temps tonight reproduces a dispatch
about severe criticisms of Emile ZoIa made
.by Ferdinand Brunetiere, the distinguished
critic, in an address in New York city Fri
day afternoon. NJ Brunetiere, according to
the dispatch, said Zola was ignorant and
presunptuous LIE Temps makes the follow
ing comment:
1T is only with the greatest caution that
we reproduce the dispatch, as the Diet ails
ii contaius are Incompatible with he style
and language of the critic, whose seventies
have always been in good taste, and who
would not have selected a foreign audience
before which to express in such terms
his opinion about a French man Of letters
ANY ordinary man would have felt a
cert ain irritation about an attack such as
the one BTunetierc made upon ZOIa in New
York, but Zola only smiled when | spoke
to him about it, and it was a smile that
expressed deeper disdain for Brunetiere
than any words could have done.
1T was in his house that l found NJ Zola.
1t was. in fact, his billiard room. NJ. Zola
was still suffering from the effects OF his
accident last week, when he was thrown
from a carriage. l noticed that he limped
little in walking. WhenI asked him a bout
his injuries he said it was only slight
matter, but that a little complication had
been brought about by the swelling of the
muscles ...t .
F." However, he continued, L was Seyerel Y
shaken up, for l fell completely under the
horses feet and might really have met my
death, but l luckily escaped without any
more troublesome affair than a slight
sprain of the ankle, which causes me a little
pain when TRY to walk up and down stairs. >
To Brunetiere's attack, on him Zoa
refused to give any but an indirect answer.
Il have read extracts from NJ. Brunetiere's S
address, he said, and the only thing it is
necessary for me to say is that l was very
much pleased on the day following my acci-
dent to he able to take up my work at the
point where 1 had left it off the previous
evening. l expect by the middle of Sep
temher to have another novel ready TO
add to nay list. 1t is about half finished
as out of twenty-five chapters thirteen are
already written.
Ny accident had little effect upon my
work. The first day after it, instead of my
usual quota Of five pages, was only able
to write two. The next day l managed
to get through three or four. Now | am
doing full work again and expect to be
sufficiently recovered to leave for the coun-
try in five or six weeks, where 1 shall work
| hard to have my next novel, Paris, ready
by autumn.
NJ. Bruuetiere's criticisms, referred to
above were as follows What has this man
| Zola done for literature? NeverhaS writer
been more ignorant. Never has an observer
| been less true. The man is ignorant of his
| tory, ignorant of the country. ignorant OF
| the city of Paris itself and yet he has dared
| TO apply the name of truth TO what he calls
| his art, and has had the impudencc to en-
| title his work Natural and Social History
| of Family Under the Second Empire
His French workman is not the French
| workman; his French soldier is not the
| French soldier; his French officer is not the
| French officer; his French bourgeois is q
| miserable, mean parody on the French
! bourgeois There Is in French life nothing
which corresponds to the baseness, the
| coarseness and the cynicism ofZola.r -.
II will not deny" continued M. Hune
| there, THAT he has talent, but L deeply re-
| gret that his talent is applied TO the setting
| of so pernicious an example. What good
| can his expostions of brutality, vulgarity
| and grossness accomplish? What moral in
| f1uence can they exert, but to create d
| world of cynics patterned after their expo,
nent"