Gil Blas (periodical)  

"I have subscribed to Le Gil Blas to find out what there was to it. I have read in it some charming articles : for example, sketches by M. Theodore de Banville, full of a poetic charm ; little novelettes, fine and spirited in their style, by M. Armand Silvestre ; highly colored studies by M. Richepin. Here are three poets whose company was highly honorable. It is true that the rest of this issue was of a lower literary order. There were, besides, some stories in it which were positively gross. Not that I blame this source of inspiration, for I should have to condemn on such a ground Rabelais, Lafontaine, and others still whom I esteem ; but in truth these stories were too badly written. This is my whole quarrel. You are highly blamable when you write badly. That is the only crime which I can admit in literature. I do not see where they can put morality, if they pretend to put it elsewhere. A well-made phrase is_a good action."--The Experimental Novel: And Other Essays (1893) by Émile Zola