Emile Zola, the well-known novelist, died in Paris on Sep-
tember 29th. He was asphyxiated in his own bedroom by fumes from a charcoal fire lighted under an imperfect chimney. There was the usual talk of suicide, but it seems clear from his wife's evidence that his death was entirely accidental. The newspapers of the Continent are full of appreciations of his works, but most of them are so completely dictated by their writers' view of M. Zola's action in theDreyfus ease as to be almost valueless. He defended Dreyfus, it will be remembered, when to defend him was to incur a sentence of social ostracism, and when a man less devoted to the cause of justice would un- doubtedly have shrunk from self-sacrifice for a man he had never seen. His conduct on that occasion throws a strong and pleasing light upon his inner character ; but we are unable to regard him as a great novelist in the highest sense, and, as we have pointed out elsewhere, we cannot admit that his good intentions excuse the foulness with which he soiled his pages.
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