The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1902-10-22
SOME TRAITS OF lola
INTERESTING PERSONAL QUAIL.
LEGATIONS OF THE AUTHOR

INTERESTING PERSONAL QUAIL.
| LEGATIONS OF THE AUTHOR
Had the Taste of Venetian NobIeman
and the Capacity of French Peas.
ant for Work-DisIiked Society and
Coquettish Fashionable Women and
Loved ldleness.
PARIS, Oct. 21.-Zola had the tastes
of a Venetian magnifico and the capac-
ity of French peasant for hard work
from years end to years end. But this
feature in his character would have
been more than neutralized by nat
ural dreaminess which made him love
idleness. Had his lot been cast in Italy
he, perhaps, would have given way to
this tendency. But, surrounded by the
most active class of a very active ma
ton, and in childhood and youth in the
blacklist poverty, he made up hi mind
to seek safety and renoWn in labOriOus
daily application to the tasks he had
set before him. One may read in La
Joie de Viyre" an account of what he
might have been if he had not on en-
tering, life adopted this rule Of con-
duct .Lazare, in whom he sees the pre-
dominance of the defective sides of his
own character, is dreamer who never
finishes anything, and proceeds con-
tinuously on the downward grade of
degeneration. He butterflies from one
to another notion, idea or scheme,
,ic ind
possesses it completely. Lazare has
talent, and even genius, but his inSur-
mountable aversion to drudgery pre-
vents him turning it to any account.
lola was not long in seeing that the
cultivation of habits of hard work at
fixed hours of the day could discipline
his mind and turn his dreaminess into
creativeness. The regular hours he
had to keep at the customs Office,
where he had a salary Of 80 francs
a month"; and then at Hatchette's, IA
cilitated the character education that
he determined to give himself. He
arose in summer at and in winter at
Z, began the task he had mapped out
for the day at 8, and remained writing
until noon. The rest Of the day he
spent in his garden when in the coun-
try in rowing on the Seine, which flow
ed by his garden, in walks, in cycling
and in snapshotting. Friends, literary
chums generally, often came down I'M
tremendously from Paris to dine.
Some of they stayed to sleep. But the
lights were out at II o'clock, for to
write we'll he found it necessary to
sleep we'll.
lola never liked society, and greatly
disliked coquettish, fashionable ladies.
In the whole course Of his long career
he was not at twenty dinner parties,
save those given in compliment to him
by his publishers, Charpentier & Fras-
quel1e, and the composer Bruneau, for
whom he promised to write this winter
a libretto. Huysmans fell away from
Zola's Thursday evenings on being
converted. De Maupassan, Paul
Alexis and Ceard are no more. The
engraver Desmoulin, Theodore Duret,
Octave Mirbeau, Drs. Larat and F1eu-
ry, and Alfred Bruneau gathered
round him and Nine lola when they
last received on a Thursday evening
Conversation, in which lola joined,
but not as an autocrat, went on freely.
At 1920 o'clock weak tea, Rheims
biscuits and jugs Of water were hand
ed round. BY II o'clock all the guests
had disappeared.
lola instinctively understood in
things material that order is heavens
first law. His orderliness was never
at fault. He could put his hand in
the dark on any book that he wanted
The newspaper cuttings, with the help
of which he pegged out plots for nov
els or invented characters, were clas-
sif1ed in subjects, or as casting light
on subjects. He found the Rougon
Macquarts in the account of family
near st. Malo, whose different mem
bers, whatever might be their circum-
stances, irresistibly gravitated toward
crime.
1t was easy to get on with lola, who
had unaffected, simple manners, and
said what he thought in a natural
way, without blunt frankness. He be-
came sensitive to public opinion as
age crept on, but in earlier life really
cared little what people thought or
said about him. He hardly ever read
criticisms on his works.
When one saw lola in a knicker-
booker suit on a cycle, one felt aston
ished at his powerful build and well
knit, muscular figure. One then saw
that he had shoulders and thews made
to bear great burdens. Maupassan
said of lola: HE alone could have
the courage to heap miXen on mixen
behind the stables of Augeas."
Zola's hands were handy. Like most
French boys brought up by poor wild
owed mothers, he had to work a great
deal with his hands, and to make him.
self useful in all directions. He could
use carpenters tools with skill knit
socks, darn, launder, mend a trunk,
hang curtains, and liked to clean his
cycle. The long, thin, nervous hands,
with knotty joints, were those of a
craftsman The long thumb formed
when he pressed 1t against anything
"a soldiers saddle" lola inherited it
from his mothers side Of the house.
now come to his countenance. 1t
had no striking feature save the COM
pact, though large, forehead which had
peculiar wrinkles that might express
WEAKNESS or bewilderment and that,
at any rate, did not express concentra-
ton or force Of character. Three hori-
zontal wrinkles ran across the middle
Of the forehead, and two short vertical
ones started from the bridge of the re-
trousse nose. This popularity gave one
sometimes the impression of his being
in a quandary and feeling wretched.
There was nothing of "the poets eve in
a fine frenzy rolling I think his ex-
aggerated vision of the beastliness Of
human nature weighed upon him. He
had no sense of hunlor, no feeling of
what is comic in life, to comfort him.
AOld WAS uOI d f6duer, ana IL may De
questioned whether he was thinker.
But unquestionably he was prodig-
iously great artist. Brought up among
his mothers people, he never learned
that it is not always good to call
spade a spade, and that sewers had
best be covered. But the pen was
grosser than the tongue, and one could
find nothing o. the apocalyntic glow
of his works in his conversation, which
was always quiet.
Nine. lola is ctildless, but she used
to see In the country on Sundays two