et's delicate,
nervous beauty made his friend Zola think of an Arabian horse, but
the poet had also the spirit of such a high-bred steed. Years of
conscientious literary labour followed, cheered by marriage with a woman
of genius capable of supplementing him in his weakest points, and then
the war with Prussia and its attendant horrors gave him the larger and
deeper view of life and the intensified patriotism--in short, the final
stimulus he needed. From the date of his first great success--_Fromont,
Jr., and Risler, Sr._--glory and wealth flowed in upon him, while
envy scarcely touched him, so unspoiled was he and so continuously and
eminently lovable. One seemed to see in his career a reflection of his
luminous nature, a revised myth of the golden touch, a new version of
the fairy-tale of the fair mouth dropping pearls. Then, as though grown
weary of the idyllic romance she was composing, Fortune donned the
tragic robes of Nemesis. Years of pain followed, which could not abate
the spirits or disturb the geniality of the sufferer, but did somewhat
abate the power and disturb the serenity of his work. Then came the
inevitable end of all life dramas, whether comic or romantic or tragic,
and friends who had known him stood round his grave and listened sadly
to the touching words in which Emile Zola expressed not merely his own
grief but that of many thousands throughout the civilized world. Here
was a life more winsome, more appealing, more complete than any creation
of the genius of the man that lived it--a life which, whether we know it
in detail or not, explains in part the fascination Daudet exerts upon us
and the conviction we cherish that, whatever ravages time may make among
his books, the memory of their writer will not fade from the hearts of
men. Many Frenchmen have conquered the world's mind by the power or
the subtlety of their genius; few have won its heart through the
catholicity, the broad sympathy of their genius. Daudet is one of these
few; indeed, he is almost if not quite the only European writer who has
of late achieved such a triumph, for Tolstoi has stern critics as well
as steadfast devotees, and has won most of his disciples as moralist and
reformer. But we must turn from Daudet the man to Daudet the author of
_The Nabob_ and other memorable novels.

If this were a general essay and not an introduction, it would be proper
to say something of Daudet's early attempts as poet and dramatist. Here
it ne