deal (quite independently of Byron and Brummel)
about English literature. One is surprised to find somewhere a reference
to Walpole's story of Fielding and his dinner-companions.

[451] Observe that this is no demand for the explanation of the
supernatural. Let the supernatural remain as it is, by all means. But
curses should have causes. Ate and Weird are terrible goddesses, but
they are not unreasonable ones. They might be less _terrible_ if they
were.

[452] He has for two years been ordered to be present, but forbidden to
celebrate; in punishment for his having, uncanonically, fought as a
Chouan--if not also for attempted suicide. But we hear of no
amorousness, and the husband Le Hardouey's jealousy, though prompted by
his wife's apparent self-destruction, is definitely stated to have no
foundation in actual guilt with the priest. On the contrary, she
declares that he cared nothing for her.

[453] Of Geoffroy Tory's book which (_v. sup._ Vol. I. p. 124) helped to
give us the Limousin student.

[454] It is possible that some readers may say, "Where are
Erckmann-Chatrian?" The fact is that I have never been able to find, in
those twin-brethren, either literature or that not quite literary
interest which some others have found. But I do not wish to abuse them,
and they have given much pleasure to these others. So I let them alone.

CHAPTER XIII

NATURALISM--THE GONCOURTS, ZOLA, AND MAUPASSANT

[Sidenote: The beginnings.]

If I were writing this _History_ on the lines which some of my critics
(of whom, let it be observed, I do not make the least complaint) seem to
prefer, or at least to miss their absence, a very large part of this
chapter would give me the least possible difficulty. I should simply
take M. Zola's _Le Roman Experimental_ and M. Brunetiere's _Le Roman
Naturaliste_ and "combine my information." The process--easy to any one
of some practice in letters--could be easier to no one than to me. For I
read and reviewed both books very carefully at their first appearance; I
had them on my shelves for many years; and the turning of either over
for a quarter of an hour, or half at the most, would put its contents
once more at my fingers' ends. But, as I have more than once pointed
out, elaborate boiling down of them would not accord with my scheme and
plan. Inasmuch as the episode or passage[455] is perhaps, of all those
which make up our story, the most remarkable instance of a deliberate
"school