M. Le Roux on "Zola."

M. Hugues Le Roux delivered his fifth lecture in Sanders Theatre yesterday taking for his subject, "Has Zola described a general side of humanity, or a particular aspect of French society?"

M. Le Roux took for the text of his lecture a passage from Pascal: "L'homme n'est ni ange ni bete." This principle of Pascal Zola has ignored, and has only considered the lower side of man. Zola's novel, "La Terse," has lately been dramatized and put on the stage in a Parisian literary theatre. The characters are countrymen, people of little or no culture, who in every country have a certain brutality of instinct. Yet in criticising this work, the peasants declare that Zola has ascribed to them all the crimes committed in the whole of France during the last ten years. Zola has betrayed Truth; he has made up his mind to depict human nature as ugly, and accordingly all classes fail to recognize themselves as he depicts them. In defence of this pessimistic attitude of Zola, the reply should be that one cannot expect an artist to paint things as they really are; but to paint things as he sees them. Zola is in this an artist, his novels have qualities which are all artistic; they are well planned and therefore classical; he is classic in the delineation of his characters, which are not mere individuals, but general types.