Though much that I would like to have said is still unsaid, the exigencies of space compel me to bring this notice to a close. However, this one thing I hope I have made clear: that it is my firm opinion that if fiction is to exist at all, the right to speak as he pleases on politics, morals, and religion must be granted to the writer, and that he on his side must take cognizance of other readers than sentimental young girls, who require to be provided with harmless occupation until something fresh turns up in the matrimonial market. Therefore the great literary battle of our day is not to be fought for either realism or romanticism, but for freedom of speech; and until that battle be gained I, for one, will continue fearlessly to hold out a hand of welcome to all comers who dare to attack the sovereignty of the circulating library.
The first of these is “Piping Hot!” and, I think, the pungent odour of life it exhales, as well as its scorching satire on the middle-classes, will be relished by all who prefer the fortifying brutalities of truth to the soft platitudes of lies. As a satire “Piping Hot!” must be read; and as a satire it will rank with Juvenal, Voltaire, Pope, and Swift.
In the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, a block of vehicles arrested the cab which was bringing Octave Mouret and his three trunks from the Lyons railway station. The young man lowered one of the windows, in spite of the already intense cold of that dull November afternoon. He was surprised at the abrupt approach of twilight in this neighbourhood of narrow streets, all swarming with a busy crowd. The oaths of the drivers as they lashed their snorting horses, the endless jostlings on the foot-pavements, the serried line of shops swarming with attendants and customers, bewildered him; for, though he had dreamed of a cleaner Paris than the one he beheld, he had never hoped to find it so eager for trade, and he felt that it was publicly open to the appetites of energetic young fellows.
“It’s the Passage Choiseul you want, isn’t it?”
“No, the Rue de Choiseul. A new house, I think.”
And the cab only had to turn the corner. The house was the second one in the street: a big house four storeys high, the stonework of which was scarcely discoloured, in the midst of the dirty stucco of the adjoining old frontages. Octave, who had alighted on to the pavement, measured it and studied it with a mechanical glance, from the silk warehouse on the ground floor to the projecting windows on the fourth floor opening on to a narrow terrace. On the first floor, carved female heads supported a highly elaborate cast-iron balcony. The windows were surrounded with complicated frames, roughly chiselled in the soft stone; and, lower down, above the tall doorway, two cupids were unrolling a scroll bearing the number, which at night-time was lighted up by a jet of gas from the inside.