The Nabob, Volume 1 | Page 5

the "Last Book," for one, in which an unlovely
character is treated with kindly contempt; and for another, the
"Book-keeper," the most Dickens-like of Daudet's shorter pieces, yet
having a literary modesty Dickens never attained. The alleged imitation
of the British novelist by the French may be left for later consideration;
but it is possible now to note that in the earlier descriptive chapters of
the "Letters from my Mill" one may detect a certain similarity of
treatment and attitude, not to Dickens but to two of the masters on
whom Dickens modelled himself, Goldsmith and Irving. The scene in
the diligence, when the baker gently pokes fun at the poor fellow whose
wife is intermittent in her fidelity, is quite in the manner of the "Sketch

Book."
There is the same freshness and fertility in the collection called "Artists'
Wives" as in the "Letters from my Mill," and the "Monday Tales," but
not the same playfulness and fun. They are severe studies, all of them;
and they all illustrate the truth of Bagehot's saying that a man's mother
might be his misfortune, but his wife was his fault. It is a rosary of
marital infelicities that Daudet has strung for us in this volume, and in
every one of them the husband is expiating his blunder. With ingenious
variety the author rings the changes on one theme, on the sufferings of
the ill-mated poet or painter or sculptor, despoiled of the sympathy he
craves, and shackled even in the exercise of his art. And the picture is
not out of drawing, for Daudet can see the wife's side of the case also;
he can appreciate her bewilderment at the ugly duckling whom it is so
difficult for her to keep in the nest. The women have made shipwreck
of their lives too, and they are companions in misery, if not helpmeets
in understanding. This is perhaps the saddest of all Daudet's books, the
least relieved by humor, the most devoid of the gaiety which illumines
the "Letters from my Mill" and the first and second "Tartarin" volumes.
But it is also one of the most veracious; it is life itself firmly grasped
and honestly presented.
It is not matrimonial incongruity at large in all its shifting aspects that
Daudet here considers; it is only the married unhappiness of the artist,
whatever his mode of expression, and whichever of the muses he has
chosen to serve; it is only the wedded life of the man incessantly in
search of the ideal, and never relaxing in the strain of his struggle with
the inflexible material from which he must shape his vision of
existence. Not only in this book, but in many another has Daudet
shown that he perceives the needs of the artistic temperament, its
demands, its limitations and its characteristics. There is a playwright in
"Rose and Ninette;" there is a painter in the "Immortal;" there is an
actor in "Fromont and Risler;" there are a sculptor, a poet, and a
novelist on the roll of the heroine's lovers in "Sapho." Daudet handles
them gently always, unless they happen to belong to the theatre.
Toward the stage-folk he is pitiless; for all other artists he has abundant
appreciation; he is not blind to their little weaknesses, but these he can

forgive even though he refuses to forget; he is at home with them. He is
never patronizing, as Thackeray is, who also knows them and loves
them. Thackeray's attitude is that of a gentleman born to good society,
but glad to visit Bohemia, because he can speak the language; Daudet's
is that of a man of letters who thinks that his fellow-artists are really the
best society.
III.
Not with pictures of artists at home did Daudet conquer his
commanding position in literature, not with short stories, not with plays,
not with verses. These had served to make him known to the inner
circle of lovers of literature who are quick to appreciate whatever is at
once new and true; but they did not help him to break through the crust
and to reach the hearts of the broad body of readers who care little for
the delicacies of the season, but must ever be fed on strong meat. When
the latest of the three volumes of short stories was published, and when
the "Woman of Arles" was produced, the transformation was complete:
the poet had developed into a veritist, without ceasing to be a poet, and
the Provençal had become a Parisian. His wander-years were at an end,
and he had made a happy marriage. Lucky in the risky adventure of
matrimony, as in so many others, he chanced upon a woman who was
congenial, intelligent and devoted, and who became almost a
collaborator in all his subsequent works.
His