," as it appeared in _La
Republique des Lettres_; I had cried, "ridiculous, abominable," only
because it is characteristic of me to instantly form an opinion and assume
at once a violent attitude. But now I bought up the back numbers of the
_Voltaire_, and I looked forward to the weekly exposition of the new
faith with febrile eagerness. The great zeal with which the new master
continued his propaganda, and the marvellous way in which subjects the most
diverse, passing events, political, social, religious, were caught up and
turned into arguments for, or proof of the truth of naturalism astonished
me wholly. The idea of a new art based upon science, in opposition to the
art of the old world that was based on imagination, an art that should
explain all things and embrace modern life in its entirety, in its endless
ramifications, be, as it were, a new creed in a new civilisation, filled me
with wonder, and I stood dumb before the vastness of the conception, and
the towering height of the ambition. In my fevered fancy I saw a new race
of writers that would arise, and with the aid of the novel would continue
to a more glorious and legitimate conclusion the work that the prophets had
begun; and at each development of the theory of the new art and its
universal applicability, my wonder increased and my admiration choked me.
If any one should be tempted to turn to the books themselves to seek an
explanation of this wild ecstasy, they would find nothing--as well drink
the dregs of yesterday's champagne. One is lying before me now, and as I
glance through the pages listlessly I say, "Only the simple crude
statements of a man of powerful mind, but singularly narrow vision."

Still, although eager and anxious for the fray, I did not see how I was to
participate in it. I was not a novelist, not yet a dramatic author, and the
possibility of a naturalistic poet seemed to me not a little doubtful. I
had clearly understood that the lyrical quality was to be for ever
banished; there were to be no harps and lutes in our heaven, only drums;
and the preservation of all the essentials of poetry, by the simple
enumeration of the utensils to be found in a back kitchen, did, I could not
help thinking (here it becomes necessary to whisper), sound not unlike
rigmarole. I waited for the master to speak. He had declared that the
Republic would fall if it did not become instantly naturalistic; he would
not, he could not pass over in silence so import