Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 159, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 July 1910 — NEW FRENCH AUTHOR. [ARTICLE]

NEW FRENCH AUTHOR.

Chmrlaa Gcatamx Said to B« One of Greatest Modern Writers. Charles Geni&ux? Probably the very name of the author of ‘‘L’Homme de Peine” Is unfamiliar to the gTeat majority of Englishmen, even to the literary. Who and what is Charles Geniaux was' eloquently related by Jd. Charles Bouvier at a lecture given at Stafford House by permission of the Duke of Sutherland, the London Morning Post says. Charles Geniaux, described by the lecturer as one of the greatest and most powerful of modern French writers, a Zola without his crndeness and lurid detail, had, he remarked, direct kinship with Flaubert and with Maupassant; yet he copied no one, was always original, always himself, scorning to present his thoughts in the clothes of others. From the first Geniaux had a horror of advertisement, and even in the early days when he had to struggle for existence, gaining a bare livelihood by inventing short stories, he persistently refused to write down to the level desired by commercially minded editors and publishers, who as often as not refused his work for the reason that it was too literary. Nothing would, induce this true poet and artist to put on paper matter simply designed to epater le bourgeoius. He was content to wait calmly, confident In the knowledge that sooner or later his work was bound to conquer the public, as it did triumphantly when in. 1907 he wen the Prlx de Rome des Auteurs, in recognition of his masterpiece, ‘'L’Homme de Peine,” on which he had worked, amid all sorts of discouragement, for seven long years. That was the turning point. So great was the demand today for the work of Charles Geniaux that he could not produce his books quickly enough to satisfy publishers or public. A man of rare modesty and no mere business man, he worked on unceasingly, creating art for art's ■ake. The splendid “L’Homme de Peine” was followed by other fine works of great force and spontaneity, among the best of them being “Les Forces de la Vie” and “La Cite de Mort.” His philosophy, said the lecturer, was In the main optimistic, though tinged with a melancholy that was probably the echo of his early days of privation and sickness. But whether Bad or buoyant, the writings of Geniaux were ever dominated by his intense love of art, which was his god. In the course of his lecture Mr. Bouvier read a delightfully fresh and vivid autobiographical sketch prepared specially for ihe occasion by M. Geniaux himself.