The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1904-09-18

paper to publish it, and you may alec sound
tsie Americans, telling them that you will
supply the most lively and interesting
book / have yet written The biographer
Is unable to say when Zola wrote the libretto
of the opera "Messidor," produced in Feb
rlary, 1897, but he thinks that 1t must have
been written in 1894 or 1896, for the COM
poser, M. Bruneau, must have subse-
quently required considerable time for
the music.
"Fecondite" was published in October,
1899. Within two years $4,000 copies had
been issued. Dealing as 1t did, with a
problem of national importance, the de-
cline of the birth rate and the massacre
OF infant life in France. 1t could not fail to
attract widespread attention. 1t was a
very outspoken book, but a necessary
one, and its exposure OF the vices Of mar
ried life was one that needed to be applied
to other countries besides France. Vize-
telly however. Zola's English publisher
who had reason to know that Pecksnifrs
and Podsnaps still fourished in England,
felt that the national cant would not suffer
"a plain statement Of the truth. Some diff
ifculty occurred, therefore, with respect
TO the translation OF "Fecondite,' the Eng
,lish version OF which had to be considerably
'curtailed. In his next novel, Travail
published in 1901, the labor problem was
considered under various aspects. The
author regarded work as panaoea for
many ills, and held that every man ought
to work for his own support and that OF
his family. He turned more particularly,
how ever, to the consideration of the cir
cumstances under which work is done in
the modern world, to the condition of
tolers generally, and to the relations of
capital and labor.
He was greatly influenced by the state
of France at the time when he wrote. by
the onward march of socialism and by
the innumerable complaints, demands and
strikes He was convinced that matters
could not remain as they were. But although
he was by nature combatant, he was
the adversary of mere brute force, and
dreading an armed collision between classes
he tried to devise and suggest a pacific
remedial evolution. AS lola was unwilling
to imprison himself or anybody else within
the narrow and stringent bonds OF certain
forms Of socialism, it was TO the broader
and more generous ideas Of Charles Fourier
that he finally inclined. striving to adapt
them to the needs Of a new century. The
biographer points out that such books as
-Fecondte" and Travail" cannot be Judged
as one would judge ordinary novels. They
were couched in the form Of novels In
order that they might reach multitude
of readers, but in them many Of the rules
e ipry CT
aside After the publication OF Travail
his London publisher sent him word that
the English translation had been regarded
less as a work of fiction than "a a combi-
nation of sermon and pamphlet, to which
the reviewers and the public did not seem
to take very kindly. lola replied under
date Of May s. 1901, Il have never con-
suited the tastes of the public and | am
too old nowadays to modify my work in
order to please it. 1 am writing these books
with a certain purpose before me, pur-
pose in which the question OF form is of
secondary importance. ! have no inten-
ton of trying TO amuse people or thrill
them with excitement. l am merely plac-
ing certain problems before them and
suggesting in some respects certain solu-
tons, showing what l hold to be wrong
and what think would be right. When
| have finished these four 'Evangiles.'
when yerita' and Justice are written,
1t is quite possible that l shall write shorter
and liveher books. Personally. l should
have everything to gain by doing 40. but
for the present ] am fulfilling duty which
the state of my country imposes on me.
After the production in 1901 OF the lyrical
drama "L'Ouragan," the prose libretto of
which had been written by him some years
previously, lola began to consider the
subject OF his next book, "Verite," which
gave him no little trouble. The biographer
deems it probable that, when the author
first planned his latest series, he had thought
of showing in this particular volume that
scientific truth, and not the assertion, delu-
sions and errors of religious systems. should
be taken as the guiding principle OF life.
But the Dreyfus case, which had intruded
into few pages Of Travail, haunted him.
He knew that it had suppl ed one Of the
most shocking exhibitions Of mendacity
that the world had ever witnessed, and it
followed that "Verite" ought not merely to
inculcate belief in scientific truth-it
ought also. to recall people to the practice
of truthfulness in their everyday life. Thus
lola q subject expanded. He had always
intended to show the evil effects of'the train
ing given to children in certain so-called
religious schools, where. according to his
view, their minds We're perverted and de-
prived of all seli-reliance by the intrusion
of the supernatural. The Dreyfus case.
however, had led him to see an even more
potent source of mischief in religious edu-
cation. The mendacty 80 current tn rough
out the period OF the dfdi had come almost
entirely from men trained by the Roman
Church. Moreover that Church's share in
the AFFAIR its hostility and its intrigues
against the republic. under cover of the
anti-Semitic agitation, were now every day
more apparent. lola had announced re-
peatedly that he would write no novel on
the Dreyfus case. for he did not wish any
body to say that he had earned single
sou, directly or indirectly, by the affair.
Nevertheless, 1t was ever beside him, with
its influence, its revelations. its lessons.
1t seemed to him fit that everybody should
understand that, in one way or another,
such turmoil. frenzy and mendaclty would
never have been possible II it had not been
for the Roman Church.
The case haunting him more and more,