Naturaliam.—It will be remembered when speaking of the advent of Parnassianism that mention was also made of Naturalism. A new order of things was to prevail. Scientific posi tivism was to domineer Faith; material inter ests, moral interests. The leaders were Louis Veuillot, journalist (Catholic notwithstanding), who was vehement and impassionate; Prevost Paradol, a haughty ironist; Jules Fabre Thiers, Gambetta, and above all Hippolyte Taine, whose influence determined the movement. He was the theorist of naturalism. He re duced the mind to a stream and group of sen sations and impulsions, of nervous vibrations. His science was the choice of small important facts, significative, minutely chronicled and dexterously arranged. He restored idea to practice and practice to sensation. For him sensation and movement were the conception of the physical universe. Before his time it was Antoine de la Salle, a friend of Heraut de Seychelles who said °Tout vibre.° Taine en dorsed the idea, if not the phrase °Tout vibre? but under different conditions, and the vibra tion was modified and regulated by three causes: the race, the moment. His works 'Essais sur La Fontaine et ses fables,' cHistoire de la Littirature Anglaise' and de l'Art> express and justify his doctrine which made a great sensation and had far-reaching results. It was a doctrine both curious and enlightened but incomplete. An abstract theorist he was a talented writer and his works abound in fertile imagination. With him, dominating the movement although taking no active part, but sympathizing with it, was Renan, who applied the same relentless methods to the exegesis, the analysis, the criti cism of religion. Nevertheless his charm, grace and imagination beguile us. He was an acrobat of the mind with a smiling philosophy and a sweet inflexibility. His dual culture, laic and religious, aptly fitted him to discourse on incredulity. Desiring the truth in religion, too intelligent to believe in its modern presentation, he outlined its numerous phases. Sincere, he changed from certainty; his style and taste are enchanting, to a degree. A representative artist he is a symbolical figure after the man ner of Socrates.
Romanciers of the Naturalist School.— Succeeding these leaders we have the younger school: Edmond About, an epicurean whose works, mirthful but not hilarious, artfully con ceal much of the scepticism they contain. Fromentin was of a double personality. Painter and traveler he has left us in his 'Maitres d'autrefois> precious pen pictures of the artists of the North. Novelist at times, he has enriched us by 'Dominique) with one of the finest romances of the century. It was an auto biography like 'Adolphe) We have the same discouragement, the same analysis of a frail stoic soul, gentle, the memory of which is dis concerting. Armand Silvestre was a poet with and a naturalist writer in his tales 'Les Joyeusetis de la semaine.' Jules Le maitre has rightly said of him: aqu'il possedait toutes les cordes de la lyre. celle de boyau et celle d'argent.° He possessed all the strings of the lyre, those of gut and those of silver.° Edouard and Jules de Goncourt were greater and more illustrious figures, naturalists to the manner born. Impassionate, nervous, impres
sionable, literary maniacs, art collectors and connoisseurs, evocators of the 18th century they were curious but great artists. Their works were of infinite variety and as infinitely beguiling. To the methods of the school they applied the search for beauty to the elevation of their art. Of quite a different character was Emile Zola, the guiding spirit of the move, ment. Claude Bernard impressed him while the doctrine of heredity disquieted him. It was on this latter that he based his 'Rougeon Macquart.> We are treated to a series of con fused agitations, incoherent situations and lim ited psychology. We witness the acts of the demented and the appetites of brutes. He gen eralized and symbolized. His novels are really heavy poems, one might even say a series of hallucinations. He was not capable of draw ing a really sympathetic character true to life but was consummately skilful in appealing to the popular imagination. His works make painful reading, leaving a distasteful and de pressing effect. His powerful temperament pervades his works—his art is his own—and while his fame may be disconcerting, it never theless exists. In comparison to Zola we have the peaceful, enticing mind of Alphonse Dau det. A southerner with the language of the cicada, we are indebted to him for some of the finest novels ever penned. He is almost a poet so much has he chosen while writing of the reality of all that is bright and cheerful. L. K Huysmans chose the religious domain. He was a dreamer. The theories of of 'Esseintes,' his heroes, his minute analysis of architectural structures, and especially cathedral windows, his horrifying description of the suf ferings of Lydwine, all go to affirm a powerful and rugged mind eminently evocative. Remote from party strife and quarrels lived Gustave Flaubert, the least literary of the group, but a noble and upright figure. How masterfully he showed up the shallowness and hypocrisy of the period and the disgust with which they in spired him. This accomplished he turned his attention to the eternal topic — the real intellec tual drama — that which makes man struggle with the sentiment of the infinite. . . . Hero dias has the intuition of it before the weak vo ciferator Antoine in the desert ; Bovary, in love. Flaubert's prose is sumptuous and sober, lyrical and comprehensive. His pupil and only dis ciple was Guy de Maupassant and he deviated from the principle. His art is direct but he applies it to develop everyday occurrences to suit dramatic situations without intellectual ele vation. Should mention be made in this cate gory of Jules Verne the friend of youth, the amazing and profuse storyteller who was so imaginative and prophetical? We witness to day the realization of his vivid imagination. His genius consisted in gripping the reader's attention and of skilfully handling entangled situations. Octave Feuillet, aristocrat and ro mancier,• created conventional types, non-exist ent to-day, but which like Balzac's characters serve a documentary interest.