sophy.
Perhaps, however, this influence led to lack of faith in his own work,
to his loss of an ideal, which Zola thinks the real secret of his
sudden change from novelist to journalist. Voltaire taught him to scoff
and disbelieve, to demand "a quoi bon?" and that took the heart out of
him. He was rather fond of exposing abuses, a habit that appears in
those witty letters to the Gaulois which in 1878 obliged him to suspend
that journal. His was a positive mind, interested in political affairs,
and with something always ready to say upon them. In 1872 he founded a
radical newspaper, Le XIXme Siecle (The Nineteenth Century), in
association with another aggressive spirit, that of Francisque Sarcey.
For many years he proved his ability as editor, business man, and
keen polemist.

He tried drama, too, inevitable ambition of young French authors; but
after the failure of 'Guillery' at the Theatre Francaise and 'Gaetena'
at the Odeon, renounced the theatre. Indeed, his power is in odd
conceptions, in the covert laugh and humorous suggestion of the
phrasing, rather than in plot or characterization. He will always be
best known for the tales and novels in that thoroughly French
style--clear, concise, and witty--which in 1878 elected him president of
the Societe des Gens de Lettres, and in 1884 won him a seat in
the Academy.

About wrote a number of novels, most of them as well known in
translation to English and American readers as to his French audience.
The bright stories originally published in the Moniteur, afterward
collected with the title 'Les Mariages de Paris' had a conspicuous
success, and were followed by a companion volume, 'Les Mariages de
Province.' 'L'Homme a l'Oreille Cassee' (The Man with the Broken
Ear)--the story of a mummy resuscitated to a world of new conditions
after many years of apparent death--shows his freakish delight in
oddity. So does 'Le Nez du Notaire' (The Notary's Nose), a gruesome tale
of the tribulations of a handsome society man, whose nose is struck off
in a duel by a revengeful Turk. The victim buys a bit of living skin
from a poor water-carrier, and obtains a new nose by successful
grafting. But he can nevermore get rid of the uncongenial Aquarius, who
exercises occult influence over the skin with which he has parted. When
he drinks too much, the Notary's nose is red; when he starves, it
dwindles away; when he loses the arm from which the graft was made, the
important feature drops off