He made no headway.

He felt but could not define.
He was afraid to.

Definition of his present tendencies would plump him back into his old dilemma.
"We must," he thought, "retain the documentary veracity, the precision of detail, the compact and sinewy language of realism, but we must also dig down into the soul and cease trying to explain mystery in terms of our sick senses.

If possible the novel ought to be compounded of two elements, that of the soul and that of the body, and these ought to be inextricably bound together as in life.

Their interreactions, their conflicts, their reconciliation, ought to furnish the dramatic interest.
In a word, we must follow the road laid out once and for all by Zola, but at the same time we must trace a parallel route in the air by which we may go above and beyond....