to him or to anybody else on the subject. Thus it came to pass that after Zola's visit, the inquiry, "Where was Vizetelly?"--started, the writer believes, by Mr. Joseph Hatton--went the round of the newspapers; but while some raised it with the best of intentions, others repeated it with a malicious sneer, a circumstance which seemed to indicate that Vizetelly's son had really taken the wisest course. When the Journalists' arrangements had been ascertained, the Authors' Club dinner was fixed for September 28; and Zola, writing to Ernest Vizetelly on the twelfth, to express his approval, said: "Let me add, that I leave you full liberty. Whether those gentlemen invite me as a novelist or as President of the Société des Gens de Lettres, I shall in either case feel deeply touched and flattered. I am not a formalist; all genuine sympathy, in whatever respect, will go to my heart." It was on September 20 that the novelist arrived in London[26] in the company of a dozen French journalists,--MM. Magnard, Scholl, Robbe, Xau, Mille, and others. Madame Zola and a few other ladies were likewise of the party. At Victoria station Sir Edward Lawson, now Lord Burnham, read in French an address of welcome, and Zola, when--like others--he had briefly responded, drove to the Savoy Hotel, where rooms had been engaged for him. The paper on anonymity which he read a couple of days afterwards to the journalists assembled in Lincoln's Inn Hall was, on the whole, well received. He admitted that the practice of signing political articles in France had undermined the authority of the press there, and tended to the destruction of parties; but, at the same time, said he, it had to be recognised that much of the inspiriting ardour of the political battle sprang from that same practice. On the other hand, as it was the custom for English political journalists to write anonymously, it might be well if they continued to do so, in order to preserve the power and authority of their press. But Zola pleaded strongly for signed articles in the departments of literary and dramatic criticism, pointing out, by the way, that such articles were indeed beginning to appear in certain English journals. One remark of his, to the effect that English newspaper men were well paid, elicited a loud roar of laughter, and there was considerable dissent when he likened some journalists to mere writing-machines at the beck and call of a superior. On that question some newspapers afterwards pointed out that on two occasions when there had been a change in the proprietorship of "The Pall Mall Gazette" the editors and the bulk of their staff had quitted the paper to uphold their opinions elsewhere. One may add that later, during the Boer war, various editors and others threw up their posts rather than write contrary to their convictions. One passage of Zola's address certainly seemed to have the full approval of his audience. It ran as follows: "To my thinking,