and the little ones did learn with a rapidity astonishing to their elders.

We would like to linger here over many curious scenes and histories of those old plantation days, but we must not make our story too long. Our feminine ranks were recruited by one of our captains, who went North, married, and brought down his young wife to add to our cheer. We rode, we walked, we sketched. Rambling along the beautiful bluffs, we each selected spots where we would build our houses when our ship of gold came in. Sometimes we started out for the day, with provision and sketching materials, and with guns and ammunition for our gentlemen to shoot alligators. A beautiful island, where there were groves of wild orange and lemon trees, was a part of our plantation. There we landed, and while the hunters were off shooting we kindled our fire, made coffee, and prepared sylvan meals. Once they came home tugging a great alligator thirteen feet long, as a model for our sketching. Then came the cutting up and skinning: the skin to be made into boots; the fat to supply the finest, most limpid machine oil for the cotton-gin. In the stomach of the monster we found pine knots, morsels of brickbats, and part of an old tin can. Nothing, apparently, came amiss to him. He must have been a genuine specimen of the scriptural leviathan, who "" teemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood." The memory of such days under the wild orange-trees by the white beach of the St. John's is pleasant yet, but we must hasten to the finale of our story.

es

It was thought by the best judges that there was upon our fields a crop which would bring a profit of ten thousand dollars over all expenses. We dreamed of it as sure, and already, in imagination, divided the spoil and reinvested for larger harvests.

Alas for human hopes! Our brave captains who had come safe through many battles were defeated and routed on this field by an army which came by night, without banner or band of music. This was the way of it. One day, in looking over the cotton fields setting full with their buds and bolls, we descried a little black worm about two inches long, with a red stripe on either side of his back. This was the first Army Worm, the commander of the advance scout. We picked him off and killed him. Next day twenty came to his funeral, and the day after that the Army was there on leaf and stalk and bud! All through the hundred acres there was the sound of a chewing and craunching direful to hear. In two days our beautiful cotton field stood gaunt and bare, without a leaf, as if a fire had passed over it. Ten thousand dollars did those reckless marauders eat, and then vanished as they came, and left us desolate.

We made in all, perhaps, two bales of cotton! Our scheme was over, our firm dissolved. One went to editing a paper, another set up a land agency. As for us, we and ours bought an orange grove on the other side of the St. John's, and forever forswore the raising of cotton.

But as at the bottom of Pandora's box there was a grain of comfort, so there was in ours. Though we made nothing, and lost all we invested, our hands were all duly paid, scot and lot, in many cases with the first money they ever earned, and it gave them a start in life. That has been the one consoling reflection when we recall the tragedy of Our Plantation.

Harriet Beecher Stowe.

66

ST. PETERSBURG is somewhat far afield to look for the latest sensation in the literary world, but so it is that the breeze which has set all Paris rustling and quivering blows from that distant north. During the last three years, Emile Zola has contributed a series of letters upon literature and life" to the Messenger of Europe, the leading periodical of Russia. Some of his subjects have had but a relative or momentary interest, though treated with all his strong and vivid individuality, while others, like the study of "the French youth of to-day," are precious mémoires pour servir for the future historian. But the real importance and significance of the correspondence are to be found in the masterly reviews and frank criticisms of contemporary French literature. More even than this, it includes an estimate of the work of his predecessors as well as of his rivals. It is nothing less than a formal opening of the great plea of realism versus romanticism. Zola has formulated the first deliberate pronunciamento of his party against the romantic school.

He has not only defined the position, the literary creed, of the realists, but he has for the first time clearly expressed their theory of the principles of their opponents, and their estimate of the value and permanence of the work of the romantic school. Hence, the letters, as they have gradually made their way back to Paris, are creating a stir nothing less than that of the days of the old struggle between classic and romantic, and it is not surprising that at this moment the dwellers on the French Parnassus are ranging themselves in two hostile camps. If, on the one side, there is the prestige of tradition, the dignities of the Academy and the Revue, and above all a leader, the doyen of the literary world, of whom not even the most extreme opponent will speak in aught but affectionate reverence, on the oth

er side there is the eager strength of the new generation, and the incontestable and enormous success of such men as Daudet and Zola himself. The attitude of the English world at this moment towards Emile Zola may not inadequately be described as suspense of judgment. No one takes up his books without acknowledging their irresistible power, either to attract or to repel. The questions, then, whether one likes or dislikes his work, whether one believes that the principles upon which it is founded are enduring, are quite apart from the interest one must feel in the judgment of such a man upon his contemporaries. No one is yet ready to accept Zola definitively as a critic; yet equally no one can help listening to his verdict. Words which from another might seem querulous or jealous, the carping of disappointment, are from him but the frank expression of conscientious judgment. The triumph of his own success places him beyond the fear of rivals.

Besides separate sketches of such authors as Balzac, Hugo, Châteaubriand, George Sand, the brothers Goncourt, the letters have born the titles, Our Contemporary Poets, The Novelists of ToDay, Contemporary Drama, Daudet's Nabob, Taine's Last Volume.

The brief space of an article can do them no justice, for a criticism depends for its truth and power as much upon total effect as a picture or novel. One needs just as much to feel the atmosphere which no mere extracts can suggest. We shall not even attempt a résume of his philosophic exposition of the theories of his own school. Of course to him his own "brothers-in-arms" are the "kings of romance;" but we turn from their brilliant portraits to names more familiar to most ears, and we choose for our brief extracts rather the bits which will best stand alone, the criticisms which have been most startling, and a few of the direct comments upon

the romantic writers. Besides their own interest, they throw a new light upon Zola himself. They show him not as a cold, unsympathetic outsider, the rude exponent of a protesting reaction. He speaks rather as one who looks back upon the dreams outgrown of childhood. He has breathed that air, he has felt that charm.1

"I remember my own youth. We were a few young boys in the heart of Provence, in love with nature and poetry. The dramas of Victor Hugo seemed to us like wonderful visions. After the close of school, I remember, ice-cold from the classic tirades we were obliged to learn by heart, we just warmed ourselves by committing whole scenes from Ernani and Ruy Blas. How often, on the shore of a little stream, after a long bath, we performed among ourselves whole acts! Then we fancied, Ah, if we could only see all that in the theatre! and it seemed to us that the roof rang with the ecstatic applause of the spectators. . . . We remember with what wonderful light shone the verses of Victor Hugo at their first appearance. It was like a new blossoming of our national literature. Lyric poetry was unknown to us. We had only the choruses of Racine and the odes of Rousseau, which now seem to us so cold and stilted. Hence the impression produced on cultivated youth was very deep, and this impression has not yet disappeared. It seems impossible that any new tree should grow in our literary soil within the shadow of the huge oak planted by Victor Hugo. This oak of lyric poetry spreads its branches to all the ends of the earth, covers all the land, fills the sky, and there is not a single poet who would not come to muse beneath and carry away in his ears the song of its birds. They are fated to repeat the music of this all-pervading voice. There is no room for other songs in the air. For the last forty years there is but one poetic language, the language of Victor Hugo. When any epoch receives so

1 It will be remembered that the text has undergone translation from French into Russian, and thence into English. The faithfulness of the English may be depended upon, but it would be surprising if the force of the figures and the style of

deep and strong an impression, the next generation must suffer, and must make repeated efforts before it can free itself and attain the possibility of developing freely its own creative power." Yet "only as lyric poet is Victor Hugo absolute king. In drama and romance his influence was never strong, and now is nothing." But here something stays the hand of Zola. It is not only the reverent loyalty which every Frenchman bears in his heart, but it is a closer personal feeling, born of those boyhood dreams, that prompts him. "Obstacles of every kind prevent one's speaking frankly one's thought when frankness would be almost rudeness. Victor Hugo is still living, and surrounded by such an aureole of glory, after so long and brilliant a life as literary king, that the truth spoken in the face of that ancient autocrat would seem almost an insult. True, we are far enough from romanticism now. For the drama, at least, we are posterity, and may pronounce our judgment; but I think respect will close our lips while Victor Hugo is alive and can hear us. . . . They have reproached me personally, that I am an ungrateful son of romanticism. No, I am not at all ungrateful. I know that our elder brothers won a glorious victory, and we are bound by enthusiastic gratitude to Victor Hugo. But it angers me, and I begin to rebel, when partisans wish to bind French literature to romanticism. If you have won freedom, then permit us to use it. Romanticism was nothing else than a rebellion: it remains for us now to use the victory. The movement begun by you is continued by us. Is that wonderful? It is the law of humanity. We borrow your soul, but we do not wish your rhetoric."

Next to Victor Hugo come Musset and Lamartine.

"Alfred de Musset still has worshipers. I speak not of readers, but of followers. . . . Of late, the women and young people have, as it were, discovthe original suffered nothing in the double translation. Exact corresponding terms cannot always be found. "Novelist" is not satisfactory for "romancier," etc. It is to be hoped that a French edition will appear before long.

ered him anew. The Premières Poèsies and the Poèsies Nouvelles have been sold in great numbers. In the provinces, especially in the very small towns, not a single young woman, not a single youth, is without them. . . Yet his early followers were few. Victor Hugo, then rising like a giant from his colossal pedestal of the island of Jersey, reigned supreme. Later, the followers of Musset raised their standard against the standard of the followers of Hugo. At the present time the arena is open."

He

"What surprises me is the oblivion now surrounding all Lamartine. stood first: when the Meditations appeared, it seemed to every one a voice had sounded from heaven. Romantic poetry was popular at that epoch. He was its prophet, its true founder. What ecstasy he awoke! I have only to turn to my own youthful recollections to find the place which Lamartine held in the heart. He was the universal favorite. It was so sweet to dream with him. We were in raptures over Victor Hugo, but we loved Lamartine. For him were all the women, and they admitted him even to the pension and the convent. He lay under the pillow, and opened to the purest souls the path of ideal love. His very name, so soft, was like a caress. And what! they have ceased to read this man! . . . I know not if he still keeps the love of young girls in the pension and the home, but I suspect he is exiled and gone. He is never mentioned in literary conversations. I do not meet his name once a month in the journals; finally, his works sell very badly. This oblivion is not inexplicable. The poetry of Lamartine was simply and purely music, a melodious phrase. It soothed and charmed. As to its contents, they consisted of lament and of pathetic despair, uttered on the morrow after the great change produced by the Revolution and the wars of the first empire. You feel how much this music must have touched its contemporaries. Times have changed; we have entered the epoch of reality, and it is not surprising that now the indefinite reveries of Lamartine please no one. I am sure, besides, that few

understand him. He is too far from us, too much in a cloud; in a word, he no longer answers to the need of the soul of our time. Hence the silence surrounding his name and his works. . . . He has no successors. There is more talk and more imitation of Racine than of him."

"Alfred de Vigny is surely as forgotten as Lamartine."

"A still more characteristic silence reigns around the name of Beranger. If ever there were a popular poet, it was he. In the time of my youth, in the last days of the reign of Louis Philippe, I remember, his songs were sung everywhere." With the second empire they grew old-fashioned, and are now completely gone. It must be so, since they were written for special time and place. "But what is more surprising is that he has left no followers. In our day, the songs are from the authors of the vaude villes, a wretched set, not even knowing what good spelling is. This explains the indecencies which are sung in the streets. All the stupidity of Paris has found a place in these silly verses."

Théophile Gautier and Charles Baudelaire were "the own sons of the men of 1830."

"Gautier's Emaux et Camées are a series of short poems, polished like precious stones, and showing the crystal transparency of agates and amethysts.

He died ten years ago, and indifference is already shown toward his books. . . . He had not, I repeat, enough original and strong notes.”

"Baudelaire is a very dangerous model. He has even to this time a crowd of imitators. . . . In him one must see romanticism diabolic. Leconte de Lisle turned to stone in the classic pose. To Baudelaire remained the rôle of one possessed with a devil. And he began to seek beauty in evil, and, according to the expression of Hugo, revealed a new shiver.' . . . I shall not speak of the affected eccentricities of his life; he became at the final end the victim of his own demoniac possession; he died young, of a nervous disease which deprived him of the memory of words. . . . All this

6

is the same romanticism, only seasoned with satanic pepper."

...

The group of young poets of to-day have known the romantic leaders through Gautier and Baudelaire. "They are the grandsons of Hugo and Lamartine. We have reached the third generation. . . . It is self-evident that these young men stand by themselves. Living at an epoch strongly opposed to poetry, which regards them with indifference and ridicule, they were obliged to separate themselves from every one, and to make of poetry an actual religion. . . . They were a band of illuminati, recognizing each other by masonic signs." Like the Indian fakirs, the "Parnassiens" (as they were called) shut their eyes, in order not to be confused by the life around them. "So they turned for subjects to mythical times, to the most remote regions. Each of them chose for himself a specialty. Some betook themselves to the Northern regions, some traveled to the East, a few went to Greece; at last, some even preempted the stars. Not one at the beginning, apparently, suspected that Paris exists; that in the streets are passing fiacres and omnibuses; that the contemporary world, broad and mighty, is hurrying along the sidewalks with them."

"In poetry no creative talent has appeared since Lamartine, Musset, and Hugo. All our poets, without exception, are inspired by these three predecessors. Apart from them nothing is done. Wherefore it seems to me that the great poet of the future must sweep away all the æsthetics of the present moment. I think that he will be thoroughly of the time; that he will develop the realistic idea in all its purity. He will express our age in a new language, which he himself will create. And without being a prophet, I trust we have not long to wait for him, for the efforts which our young poets are making to leave the wornout forms prove the profound revolution which is preparing. We see in them the harbingers. It may be the master is in the midst of them, but he is still unknown. Be that as it may, we are ready to receive him with honor."

Zola is more upon his own ground with the novelists than with the poets. Of course, the realists take all the honors; but it is remarkable that from all these pages one cannot infer his own personal career, his own individual work. With all his boldness, there is nothing of aggressive egotism.

"Champfleury is still living, but alas, he is a leader without an army; and saying that he still lives, I ought to add that for literature he is dead, for it is long since he has written a single romance." The realistic movement undertaken by Champfleury in 1848 was the first protest against triumphant romanticism."Unluckily, Champfleury, in spite of his undoubted talent, was not strong enough to carry the campaign to the end. The movement was destined to fail. It made a stir, but then the public went over to Flaubert and the brothers Goncourt, the true heirs of Balzac. Worse than all, Champfleury himself lost heart, seeing that his readers abandoned him. He ceased to write, and now lingers in veritable literary death, that terrible death the worst of tortures for an author - of the aged and the forgot

ten."

-

Of the group of writers who may be called followers of George Sand and Lamartine, Jules Sandeau is "the veteran. He is one of the two novelists whom the Academy counts. Long since he gave up writing. He has altogether separated himself from active literary life. You meet him sometimes near the Academy, walking slowly, flânant, like a good bourgeois, with the air of a man not of this world. He is the sort of writer who pleases more than all women and young girls."

"The second novelist-Academician. Octave Feuillet, produced an actual furore. Twelve, fifteen years ago, in the full bloom of the empire, his romances reached the thirtieth thousand. He was then the fashionable novelist in the aristocratic world. He was honored at the Tuileries; the empress regarded him with great favor, and consulted him as to the choice of books for reading. All his originality consisted in making