There is no
keenness in him. At the first glance of the eye one can see that he
is a doctrinarian shut up in himself, who does not embrace large
horizons--sees everything at a certain angle, narrow-mindedly yet
seeing distinctly.
His mind, like a dark lantern, throws a narrow light in only one
direction, and he goes in that direction with immovable surety.
In that way the history of a series of his books called "Les
Rougon-Macquart" becomes clear.
Zola was determined to write the history of a certain family at the
time of the Empire, on the ground of conditions produced by it, in
consideration of the law of heredity.
There was a question even about something more than this
consideration, because this heredity had to become the physiological
foundation of the work. There is a certain contradiction in the
premises. Speaking historically Rougon-Macquart had to be a picture
of French society during its last times. According to their moral
manifestations of life, therefore, they ought to be of themselves more
or less a normal family. But in such a case what shall one do with
heredity? To be sure, moral families are such on the strength of
the law of heredity--but it is impossible to show it in such
conditions--one can do it only in exceptional cases of the normal
type. Therefore the Rougon are in fact a sick family. They are
children of nervousness. It was contracted by the first mother of the
family, and since that time the coming generations, one after another,
followed with the same stigma on their foreheads.
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