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Charles
Victor Cherbuliez (July 19, 1829 - July 1, 1899), French novelist
and miscellaneous writer, was born at Geneva, where his father,
André Cherbuliez (1795-1874), was a classical professor at the
university.
He was descended from a family of Protestant refugees, and many
years
later Victor Cherbuliez resumed his French nationality, taking
advantage
of an act passed in the early days of the Revolution. Geneva
was the
scene of his early education; thence he proceeded to Paris, and
afterwards to the universities of Bonn and Berlin.
He returned to his native town and engaged in the profession of
teaching. After his resumption of French citizenship he was
elected a
member of the Academy (1881), and having received the Legion of
Honor in 1870, he was promoted to be officer of the order in 1892.
Cherbuliez was a voluminous and successful writer of
fiction. His first
book, originally published in 1860, reappeared in 1864 under the
title
of Un Cheval de Phidias: it is a romantic study of
art in the golden age
of Athens. He went on to produce a series of novels, most of
which first appeared in the Revue des deux mondes, to which
Cherbuliez also contributed a number of political and learned
articles, usually printed with the pseudonym G Valbert. Many
of these have been published in collected form under the titles L'Allemagne
politique (1870), L'Espagne politique (1874), Profils
étrangers (1889), L'Art et la nature (1892), etc. The
volume Etudes de littérature et d'art (1873) includes
articles for the most part reprinted from Le Temps.
The earlier novels of Cherbuliez have been said with truth to show
marked traces of the influence of George Sand; and in spite of
modification, his method was that of an older school. He did
not possess the somber power or the intensely analytical skill of
some of his later contemporaries, but his books are distinguished
by a freshness and
honesty, fortified by cosmopolitan knowledge and lightened by
unobtrusive humor, which fully account for their wide popularity
in
many countries besides his own. His genius was the reverse
of dramatic, and attempts to present two of his stories on the
stage have not succeeded. His essays have all the merits due to
liberal observation and thoroughness of treatment; their style,
like that of the novels, is
admirably lucid and correct. |
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Half the
joy of life is in the little things taken on the run.
Let
us run if we must--even the sands do that--but let us
keep our hearts young and our eyes open that nothing
worth our while shall escape us.
Victor
Cherbuliez
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