ith startling realism, the lowest
peasant life. _Le Reve_, which followed, was a reaction. It was a
graceful idyl. _Le Reve_ was termed "a symphony in white," and was
considered as a concession to the views of the majority of the French
Academy. _La Bete Humaine_ exhausted the details of railway life.
_L'Argent_ treats of financial scandals and panics. _La Debacle_,
1892, is a realistic picture of the desperate struggles of the
Franco-Prussian war. _Le Docteur Pascal_, 1893, a story of the
emotions, wound up the series. Through it all runs the thread of
heredity and environment in their influence on human character.

But Zola's work was not finished. A series of three romances on cities
showed a continuance of power. They are _Lourdes_, _Rome_, and
_Paris_. After the books on the three cities Zola planned a sort of
tetralogy, intended to sum up his social philosophy, which he called
the "Four Gospels." _Feconditie_ is a tract against race suicide. The
others of this series are entitled _Travail_, _Verite_ and _Justice_,
the latter projected but not begun.

The attitude which Zola took in reference to the wretched Dreyfus
scandal will add greatly to his fame as a man of courage and a lover
of truth. From this filthy mess of perjury and forgery Zola's
intrepidity and devotion to justice arise clear and white as a lily
from a cesspool.

Several of Zola's books have been dramatized.

Zola died suddenly at his home in Paris, in September, 1902. He
received a public funeral, Anatole France delivering an oration at the
grave. There is every indication that Zola's great reputation as an
artist and philosopher will increase with the passing of the years.

C. C. STARKWEATHER.

A LOVE EPISODE

CHAPTER I.

The night-lamp with a bluish shade was burning on the chimney-piece,
behind a book, whose shadows plunged more than half the chamber in
darkness. There was a quiet gleam of light cutting across the round
table and the couch, streaming over the heavy folds of the velvet
curtains, and imparting an azure hue to the mirror of the rosewood
wardrobe placed between the two windows. The quiet simplicity of the
room, the blue tints on the hangings, furniture, and carpet, served at
this hour of night to invest everything with the delightful vagueness
of cloudland. Facing the windows, and within sweep of the shadow,
loomed the velvet-curtained bed, a black mass,