dirt-compeller

Updated: June 14, 2025

Blunt George Saintsbury calls Zola the "naturalist Zeus, Jove the Dirt-Compeller," and adds that as Zola misses the two lasting qualities of literature, style, and artistic presentation of matter, he is doomed; for "the first he probably could not have attained, except in a few passages, if he would; the second he has deliberately rejected, and so the mother of dead dogs awaits him sooner or later."

James Huneker - Ivory Apes and Peacocks