Every novelist of any consequence has found it
necessary to "cram" his subjects, but says little about the fact. James
Payn, for instance, could not have written his admirable descriptions of
China in _By Proxy_ without much reading of many books, and Mr.
Rudyard Kipling has not been blamed for studying the technicalities of
engineering before he wrote _The Ship that found Herself_. It is open to
question even whether Mr. Robert Hichens acquired his intimate knowledge
of the conditions of life in Southern Europe and Northern Africa
entirely without the assistance of Herr Baedeker. Zola undoubtedly
studied his subjects, but far too much has been made of the necessity
for his doing so. His equipment for the task he undertook was not less
complete than that of many another novelist, and, like Dickens, he
studied life in that school of a "stony-hearted stepmother," the streets
of a great city.
Zola's literary method may be described as a piling up of detail upon
detail till there is attained an effect portentous, overwhelming. He
lacked, however, a sense of proportion; he became so carried away by
his visions of human depravity, that his characters developed powers of
wickedness beyond mortal strength; he lay under an obsession regarding
the iniquities of mankind.
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