Emile Zola - Novelist and Reformer - an Account of His Life and Work

EMILE ZOLA - A NOVELIST AND REFORMER - AN ACCOUNT OF HIS LIFE & WORK by ERNEST ALFRED VIZETELLY. Originally published in 1904. PREFACE: THIS book is an attempt to chronicle the chief incidents in the life of the late fimile Zola, and to set out the various aims he had in view at different periods of a career which was one of the most strenuous the modern world has known. Virtually all his work is enumerated in the following pages, which, though some are given to argument and criticism, will be found crowded with facts. The result may not be very artistic, but it has been partially my object to show what a tremendous worker Zola was, how incessantly, how stubbornly, he practised the gospel which he preached. An attempt has been made also to show the growth of humani tarian and reforming passions in his heart and mind, passions which became so powerful at last that the novelist in Zola seemed as nothing. Yet I do not think I can be charged with having neglected the literary side of his career. It is that which bulks most largely in the present volume, and that I think is as it should be for while Zola was certainly, and in some respects essentially, a Reformer, the pen was the weapon with which he strove to effect his purposes. Designed more particularly for British and American readers, the book contains some passages which I should have abbreviated omitted perhaps if I had been addressing a French audience. And some subjects, which, in that case, I might have treated more fully, have here been dealt with briefly. For instance, though I have enumerated all the plays that Zola wrote, and most of those founded by others on his works, I have not entered into any real discussion of his views respecting the stage, or of his indirect influence on it in France. I have thought it sufficient to indicate that such influence was exercised. A full examination of Zolas relations with the stage would have materially increased the length of a work which is long already, and which I have been anxious to keep within the scope of one volume a desire which has made my task more difficult than it would have been had I used my materials in all their fulness. But I am distinctly of opinion that biographies in several volumes have nowadays little chance of surviving, even for a moderate number of years. With respect to Zolas share in the Dreyfus case everybody will recognise, I think, how difficult it is to narrate the doings of any one individual in such an intricate mtUe without constant reference to the other combatants and explanation of the many points at issue. Nevertheless, though I fully recognise that the deliverance of Captain Dreyfus was not effected by Zola only, that many other able and whole-hearted men co-operated in that great achievement, have endeavoured to disentangle Zolas share in the battle from that of the others, saying of them only what has seemed to me strictly necessary to explain his actions. I mention this in order that none may think me unjust towards Zolas fellow-fighters. And though in some introductory pages I have endeavoured to indicate the primary causes of the Affair, such as I think them to have been, in the hope that the reader may be better able to understand the fury of the fray, I have not plunged into a discussion of the Affair itself. Besides, M. Dreyfuss case is now once more before the Cour de Cassation, and reserve on a variety of matters has therefore become advis able. Further, for some years already, a far abler pen than mine, wielded by one of far greater authority, M...