It were as wise to cast a violet into a crucible, that you might discover the formal principles of its colour and odor, as to seek to transfer from one language into another the creations of a poet.

The form (of the story) crystallised in the newly arrived seed and a contemporary style was readied for it. But there remained above and beyond both a mysterious thing which I call the intuitive feel for the soul of narrative art, its rhythm, and its temperament. These were available exclusively to writers intimate with Western culture. Stories written by others, despite fulfilling all the [formal] requirements, still lacked that secret scent which makes story [writing] an art. This phenomenon persists to this day [1960]. There is no harm, therefore, in admitting that the story came to us from the West and that its foundations here were laid by pioneering individuals who had been influenced by European, especially French literature. For even though some English masterpieces had been translated into Arabic, the origins of the story in our culture are rooted in French literature. The Egyptian temperament at that time felt no alienation from France as it did from England – perhaps because of the cultural similarity among the peoples of the Mediterranean basin. Another factor may have also contributed to that, namely the fact that some French writers had played important political roles in the history of their country. The names of these writers became widely known as symbols of liberation movements. [Victor] Hugo, whose Les Misérables Ḥāfiẓ [Ibrāhīm] translated, was such a writer; al-Manfalūṭī followed suit and rendered in Arabic only texts of French literature.