admitted, is simply M. Zola himself. Personal appearance, life,
habits, opinions, all are those of the novelist at a certain period of
his career; and for this reason, no doubt, many readers of 'His
Masterpiece' will find Sandoz the most interesting personage in the
book. It is needless, I think, to enter into particulars on the
subject. The reader may take it from me that everything attributed in
the following pages to Pierre Sandoz was done, experienced, felt or
said by Emile Zola. In this respect, then 'His Masterpiece' is
virtually M. Zola's 'David Copperfield'--the book into which he has
put most of his real life. I may also mention, perhaps, that the long
walks on the quays of Paris which in the narrative are attributed to
Claude Lantier are really M. Zola's walks; for, in his youth, when he
vainly sought employment after failing in his examinations, he was
wont, at times of great discouragement, to roam the Paris quays,
studying their busy life and their picturesque vistas, whenever he was
not poring over the second-hand books set out for sale upon their
parapets. From a purely literary standpoint, the pictures of the quays
and the Seine to be found in _L'Oeuvre_ are perhaps the best bits of
the book, though it is all of interest, because it is essentially a
_livre vecu_, a work really 'lived' by its author. And if in the
majority of its characters, those readers possessing some real
knowledge of French art life find one man's qualities blended with
another's defects, the appearance of a third, and the habits of a
fourth, the whole none the less makes a picture of great fidelity to
life and truth. This is the Parisian art world as it really was, with
nothing improbable or overstrained in the narrative, save its very
first chapter, in which romanticism is certainly allowed full play.

It is quite possible that some readers may not judge Claude Lantier,
the 'hero,' very favourably; he is like the dog in the fable who