Mr. Moore speaks of M. Zola's vast imagination. It is vast in the
sense that it sees one thing at a time, and sees it a thousand times
as big as it appears to most men. But can the imagination that sees a
whole world under the influence of one particular fury be compared
with that which surveys this planet and sees its inhabitants busy with
a million diverse occupations? Drink, Money, War--these may be
usefully personified as malignant or beneficent angels, for pulpit
purposes. But the employment of these terrific spirits in the harrying
of the Rougon-Macquart family recalls the announcement that

"The Death-Angel smote Alexander McGlue...."

while the methods of the _Roman Expérimental_ can hardly be better
illustrated than by the rest of the famous stanza--

"--And gave him protracted repose:
He wore a check shirt and a Number 9 shoe,
And he had a pink wart on his nose."




SELECTION


May 4, 1895. Hazlitt.

"Coming forward and seating himself on the ground in his white dress
and tightened turban, the chief of the Indian jugglers begins with