Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 February 1894 — JULE’S VERNE’S IDEAS. [ARTICLE]

JULE’S VERNE’S IDEAS.

The French Story Writer Explains What lte Aim* At. In the course of a conversation with R. H. Sherard on his life ana work, reported in McClure’s Magazine, Jules Verne says: “My object has been to depict the earth, and not the earth alone, but the universe, for 1 have sometimes t. ken my readers away from the earth, in the novel. And I have tried at the same time to realize a very high ideal of beauty of style. It is ! aid that there can’t be any style in a novel of adventure, but that isn't t: ue; though 1 admit that it is very much more difficult to write such a novel in a good literary form than tho studios of character which are so much in vogue. And let me say’’—here Jules Verne, slightly raised his broad shoulders ‘‘that lam no very groat admirer of tho psychological novel, so-called, because 1 don’t see what a novel hai to do with psychology, and 1 can't say that I admire the so-called psychological noveli-ts. I except, however, D iydet and Do Maupassant. For Do Maupass. nt I huve tho very highest admiration. He is a man of gpnius, who tyas received from noa\6n the gift of writing otorv thing, and who produces ai naturally and ea ily as an apple tree produces apples. My favorite author however, is, and always has boon, Dickens. I don't know more than a hundred words of English, and so liuvotoroad him in translation. But I declare to you. sir” —Verne laid his hand upoi the table with eraphads—“that 1 have read the whole of Dickons at least ten times over. 1 cannot sav that I prefor him to Maupassant, tecumo there is no comparison possible between tho two. But I love him mmonseVy, and in my forthcoming novel, “Petit Bonhonime,’ tho proof of this is given and acknowledgment of my dbt is made. lam also and h&vo alway s boon a groat admirer of Cooper'Hnmols. There ui-o fifteen of these which I consider immortal, ”