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OBITUARIES, FOREIGN. (WILTSHIRE ZOLA.) 



Wiltshire, Thomas, English geologist, born 

 about 1828; died in Blackheath, Kent, Oct. 26, 

 1902. He was educated at Cambridge, and after 

 preparing for the Anglican ministry was ordered 

 priest in 1852. He was lecturer on geology at 

 King's College, London, in 1872-'81; assistant pro- 

 fessor there, 1881-'91; and Professor of Geology 

 and Mineralogy from 1891 till his retirement in 

 1895. Prof. Wiltshire was the author of The Red 

 Chalk of England (1859) ; The Ancient Flint Im- 

 plements of Yorkshire (1862) ; The Chief Groups 

 of the Cephalopoda (1867); The Red Chalk of 

 Hunstanton (1869) ; and History of Coal (1878). 



Zola, Emile, French novelist, born in Paris, 

 April 2, 1840; died there, Sept. 29, 1902. His father 

 was an Italian civil engineer, who drifted into 

 France and constructed a canal at Aix. He mar- 

 ried in Paris Emilie Aubert, and after the birth 

 of their son returned to Provence. He died in 

 _______^____ _ 1847, leaving his 



imHHH^HHHH family in strait- 

 ened circum- 

 stances. Through 

 the aid of his ma- 

 ternal grandfa- 

 ther, Emile Zola 

 was sent to school 

 and college. In 

 1857 he followed 

 his mother to Par- 

 is and obtained a 

 scholarship at the 

 Lycee Saint-Louis, 

 but failed to get 

 his degree. He 

 already showed 

 literary tastes and 

 had written a 

 comedy called En- 

 fonce le Pion. He began life as an employee of 

 the Custom-House at the wharves on the Seine, . 

 on a salary so meager that he was barely able to 

 ;support his mother and himself in two small 

 rooms. Through a change of administration he 

 lost his place, and his mother returned to live with 

 friends in Provence. Zola removed to a garret 

 .and subsisted on chance employment through 

 three years of the direst poverty. About the end 

 of 1861 he obtained work as a packer of books in 

 the publishing house of Hachette & Co., at a sal- 

 ary of $20 a month. He then devoted all his lei- 

 sure to writing verses, tales, and romances. This 

 came to the knowledge of M. Hachette, who trans- 

 ferred him to the publishing department and 

 raised his salary to $40. In 1864 Zola published 

 his first book, the Contes a Ninon. He also wrote 

 articles for the Petit Journal and the Vie Pari- 

 sienne. In January, 1866, he left Hachette's to 

 devote himself entirely to literary work, and the 

 next month became an editor on the Evenement 

 under Villemessant. His sympathy for realism 

 in painting and literature began to attract atten- 

 tion. He knew the sufferings of the poor, and 

 determined to describe their life as it was. The- 

 rse Raquin, The Mysteries of Marseilles, and 

 Madeleine Frat rapidly flowed from his pen. The 

 last-named novel dealt with the question of he- 

 redity, and soon afterward he conceived the plan 

 of making this subject the basis for a series deal- 

 ing with successive generations of a family dur- 

 ing the second empire. This was the famous 

 Rougon-Macquart series. In 1869 he began to 

 write the first volume, La Fortune des Rougon, 

 which the Si&cle began to print as a daily feiiillf- 

 ton. On May 30, 1870, Zola married Mile. Alex- 

 andrine Gabrielle Meley, and two months later the 

 Franco-German War interrupted his work. Dur- 



ing its progress he narrowly escaped being buried 

 in a Government office, having been nominated 

 subprefect of Castelsarrazin, but Gambetta did 

 not confirm his appointment. After the war Zola 

 returned to Paris and took an apartment in Bati- 

 gnolles. The family was in great poverty, and he 

 worked hard night and day, writing for the pa- 

 pers and acting as" parliamentary reporter for the 

 Cloche. He had arranged with Lacroix for the 

 publication of the Rougon-Macquart series, but 

 the war prevented this. Zola, therefore, on the 

 recommendation of Theophile Gautier, addressed 

 himself to Charpentier, offering to sell one novel 

 yearly, of which the publisher was to have exclu- 

 sive right of sale and reproduction for a period of 

 ten years, in consideration of a payment of $100 

 a month. Charpentier accepted, and then Zola 

 began his great work with the tenacity of purpose 

 and regularity which ever afterward character- 

 ized him, writing La Fortune des Rougon, La 

 Curee, Le Ventre de Paris, La Conquete de Plas- 

 sans, La Faute de 1'AbbS Mouret, and Son Excel- 

 lence EugSne Rougon, none of which had a very 

 large sale. But in 1877 appeared L'Assommoir, 

 which brought the author fame and fortune. 

 Charpentier voluntarily canceled his contract 

 with Zola and made him a present of $4,000. 

 With $1,800 Zola bought a little villa at Medan, 

 near Paris, and also removed to a better apart- 

 ment in the Rue Saint-Georges. These novels 

 were far from occupying his entire time. He 

 dramatized Ther&se Raquin, and wrote two vaude- 

 villes that did not succeed. It was only when he 

 associated with himself a practical playwright, 

 M. Busnach, that .he was able to produce a suc- 

 cessful play by dramatizing L'Assommoir, which 

 was brought out at the Ambigu in 1879. He ex- 

 pounded his naturalistic theories in the Messager 

 d'Europe, of St. Petersburg, and to defend realism 

 on the stage became dramatic critic of the Bien 

 Public and afterward of the Voltaire. He carried 

 his theories into politics, publishing in 1879 a man- 

 ifesto denouncing opportunism. In 1880 he went 

 to the Figaro, where his articles were for many 

 years a well-known feature. He became head of 

 a sort of school, and attracted to himself young 

 authors such as Guy de Maupassant, Paul Alexis, 

 Henry Ceard, Leon Hennique, and Huysmans. 

 They used to meet at his country villa, and togeth- 

 er they wrote the Soirees de Medan, each author 

 contributing a story, that of Zola being called 

 L'Attaque du Moulin, which afterward formed 

 the subject of an opera. After L'Assommoir Z<>la 

 continued the Rougon-Macquart series, writinir 

 Une Page d'Amour, Nana, Pot-Bouille, Au Bmi- 

 heur des Dames, La Joie de Vivre, Germinal, 

 L'CEuvre, La Terre, Le Reve, La Bete Humaine, 

 L'Argent, La Debacle, and finally, in 1893, Le 

 Docteur Pascal. The most striking of the 20 

 volumes are Le Ventre de Paris, describing the 

 market life of the city; L'Assommoir the 

 " knocker-out " so-called from the name he gave 

 to a low caf6 where the vile spirits distilled - 

 to their death the dregs of humanity: Nana. 

 whose heroine sells herself into a life of splendid 

 shame; Germinal, showing the brutalizing ellVct 

 of incessant labor; and La Debacle, describing 

 the overthrow of the empire in the Franco-German 

 War. His novels are like photographs, accurate 

 portrayals of immoralities, and abound in crudi- 

 ties and indecencies shocking not only to refined 

 taste, but to any one with the least moral sense. 

 Perhaps in thus holding the mirror up to vice it 

 was Zola's intention to expose its hideousness, 

 but he never draws conclusions. He leaves that 

 to the reader. With the growth of his fame, Zola, 

 who had shunned public honors, became desirous 



