I cannot see, however, that Homais
is any more stupid than Flaubert himself, and he may even be less so.
_The Giants_
The good Zola, vigorous, dull and perspiring, dubbed his contemporaries,
the French naturalistic novelists, "Giants." What an imagination was
possessed by Zola!
These "Giants" were none other than the Goncourts, whose insignificance
approached at times imbecility, and in addition, Alphonse Daudet, with
the air of a cheap comedian and an armful of mediocre books--a truly
French diet, feeble, but well seasoned. These poor Giants, of whom Zola
would talk, have become so weak and shrunken with time, that nobody is
able any longer to make them out, even as dwarfs.
THE SPANISH REALISTS
The Spanish realists of the same period are the height of the
disagreeable. The most repugnant of them all is Pereda. When I read him,
I feel as if I were riding on a balky, vicious mule, which proceeds at
an uncomfortable little trot, and then, all of a sudden, cuts stilted
capers like a circus horse.
THE RUSSIANS
_Dostoievski_
One hundred years hence Dostoievsky's appearance in literature will be
hailed as one of the most extraordinary events of the nineteenth
century. Among the spiritual fauna of Europe, his place will be that of
the Diplodocus.
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