that for some years now
I have translated M. Zola's novels into English, and that I have taken my
share of the proceeds of the translations. For the rest our intercourse
has been purely and simply that of friends.

It is because, I believe, I know and understand Emile Zola so well, that
I never once lost confidence in him throughout the events which led to
his exile in England. That exile, curiously enough, I foreshadowed in a
letter addressed to the 'Star' some months before it actually began.
When, however, one has been intimate with the French for thirty years or
so it is not, to my thinking, so very difficult to tell what is likely to
happen in a given French crisis. The unexpected has to be reckoned with,
of course; and much depends on ability to estimate the form which the
unexpected may take. Here experience, familiarity with details of
contemporary French history, and personal knowledge of the men concerned
in the issue, become indispensable.

On January 16, 1898, three days after M. Zola's famous 'J'accuse' letter
appeared in 'L'Aurore,' and two days before the French Government
instructed the Public Prosecutor to proceed against its author, I wrote
to the 'Westminster Gazette' a long letter dealing with M. Zola's
position. In this letter, which appeared in the issue of the 19th, I
began by establishing a comparison between Zola and Voltaire, whose
action with regard to the memory of Jean Calas I briefly epitomised.
Curiously enough at that moment M. Zola, as I afterwards learnt, was
telling the Paris correspondent of the 'Daily Chronicle' that the
opposition offered to his advocacy of the cause of Alfred Dreyfus was
identical with that encountered by Voltaire in his championship of Calas.
This was a curious little coincidence, for I wrote my letter without
having any communication with M. Zola respecting it. It contained some
passes which I here venture to quote. In a book dealing with the great
novelist these passages may not be out of place, as they serve to
illustrate his general attitude towards the Dreyfus case.

'Truth,' I wrote, 'has been the one passion of Emile Zola's life.* "May
all be revealed so that all may be cured" has been his sole motto in
dealing with social problems. "Light, more light!"--the last words gasped
by Goethe on his death-bed--has ever been his cry. Holding the views he
holds, he could not do otherwise than come forward at this crisis in
French history as the champion of truth a