a sentence on his lips. Yet, such is the irony
of literary history, the novel is loosely enough put together to have
been written, one might suppose, in bursts of inspiration or else more
or less methodically--almost with the intention, as Mr. James has noted,
of including every striking phase of Parisian life. For it is a series
of brilliant, effective episodes and scenes, not a closely knit drama.
Jenkins's visit to Monpavon at his toilet, the _dejeuner_ at the
Nabob's, the inspection of the OEuvre de Bethleem--which would have
delighted Dickens--the collapse of the fetes of the Bey, the Nabob's
thrashing Moessard, the death of Mora, Felicia's attempt to escape the
funeral of the duke, the interview between the Nabob and Hemerlingue,
the baiting in the Chamber, the suicide of that supreme man of tone,
Monpavon, the Nabob's apoplectic seizure in the theatre--these and many
other scenes and episodes, together with descriptions and touches, stand
out in our memories more distinctly and impressively than the characters
do--perhaps more so than does the central motive, the outrageous
exploitation of the naive hero. For from the beginning of his career to
the end Daudet's eye, like that of a genuine but not supereminent poet,
was chiefly attracted by colour, movement, effective pose--in other
words, by the surfaces of things. One may almost say that he was more of
a landscape engineer than of an architect and builder, although one must
at once add that he could and did erect solid structures. But the
reader at least helps greatly to lay the foundations, for, to drop the
metaphor, Daudet relied largely on suggestion, contenting himself with
the belief that a capable imagination could fill up the gaps he left
in plot and character analysis. Thus, for example, he indicated and
suggested rather than detailed the way in which Hemerlingue finally
triumphed over the Nabob, Jansoulet. To use another figure, he drew the
spider, the fly, and a few strands of the web. The Balzac whose bust
looked satirically down upon the two adventurers in Pere la Chaise would
probably have given us the whole web. This is not quite to say that
Daudet is plausible, Balzac inevitable; but rather that we stroll
with the former master and follow submissively in the footsteps of the
latter. Yet a caveat is needed, for the intense interest we take in the
characters of a novel like _The Nabob_ scarcely suggests strolling.

For although Daudet, in spite of hi