ragedy in real life is the actual plot of _La
Terre_, which was written twenty-four years before it occurred.

In accordance with the author's usual plan, whereby a heavy book was
followed by a light one, _La Terre_ was succeeded by _Le Reve_, a work
at the other extreme of the literary gamut. As _La Terre_ is of the
earth, earthy, so is _Le Reve_ spiritual and idyllic, the work of a man
enamoured of the refined and the beautiful. It has indeed been described
as the most beautiful work written in France during the whole of the
nineteenth century.

_La Bete Humaine_, the next of the series, is a work of a different
class, and is to the English reader the most fascinating of all Zola's
novels. It deals with human passions in their elemental forms, with a
background of constant interest in the railway life of Western France.
The motives are always obvious and strong, a criticism which can by no
means be invariably applied to French fiction.

Next appeared _L'Argent_, which is the sequel to _La Curee_ and deals
with financial scandals. It was inspired by the failure of the Union
Generale Bank a few years before, and is a powerful indictment of the
law affecting joint-stock companies. To _L'Argent_ there succeeded _La
Debacle_, that prose epic of modern war, more complete and coherent
than even the best of Tolstoi. And to end all came _Le Docteur Pascal_,
winding up the series on a note of pure romance.

Regarded as a literary tour de force the work is only comparable to
the _Comedie Humaine_. It occupied nearly twenty-five years in writing,
consists of twenty volumes containing over twelve hundred characters,
and a number of words estimated by Mr. E. A. Vizetelly at two million
five hundred thousand.

There can be little doubt that Zola's best work was expended on the
Rougon-Macquart series. With its conclusion his zeal as a reformer began
to outrun his judgment as an artist, and his later books partake more of
the nature of active propaganda than of works of fiction. They comprise
two series: _Les Trois Villes_ (Lourdes, Paris, Rome) and _Les Quatre
Evangiles_, of which only three (Fecondite, Travail, and Verite) were
written before the author's death. Politics had begun to occupy his
attention, and from 1896 onwards he increasingly interested himself in
the Jewish question which culminated in the Dreyfus case. His sense of
justice, always keen, was outraged by the action of the authorities and
on 13th January, 1898,