ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN
Brigadier Frederick
AND
The Dean's Watch
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH
WITH A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION
BY PROF. RICHARD BURTON, OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
A FRONTISPIECE AND NUMEROUS
OTHER PORTRAITS WITH
DESCRIPTIVE NOTES BY
OCTAVE UZANNE
P. F. COLLIER & SON
NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1902
BY D. APPLETON & COMPANY
ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN
Fashions change in literature, but certainthings abide. There may be disputes fromgeneration to generation, even from decade to decade,as to what is æsthetic, or what is beautiful; thereis less as to what is human. The work of theFrench writers, whose duality is quite lost in thelong-time association of their names for thepurposes of story making, seems at the least to makethis claim to outlast its authors: it is delightfullysaturated with humanity.
And this humanity is of the sort that, since itcan be understood of all men, is therefore verywidely acceptable. It is well to emphasize thepoint in an attempt to explain the popularity ofErckmann-Chatrian, immediate or remote. Thereare other reasons, to be sure: but this one is atthe door, knocking to be heard. But to speak ofthe essential humanity of these books is not todeny or ignore their art; that they have inabundance--quite as truly indeed as the work of yourmost insistent advocate of "art for art"; but it isart for life's sake. In the best sense, theverisimilitude of the Erckmann-Chatrian stories isadmirable, impressive. They are, as a rule, exquisitely inkey. They produce a cumulative effect by steadily,unobtrusively clinging to a single view-point, thatof the speaker who is an eye-witness, and theresult is a double charm--that of reality and that ofillusion. One sees life, not BU KİTABI OKUMAK İÇİN ÜYE OLUN VEYA GİRİŞ YAPIN!
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