as "Tom
Jones" is moral. Fielding's novel is English, robust, hearty, brutal in
a way, and its morality is none too lofty. Daudet's is French, softer,
more enervating, and with an almost complacent dwelling on the sins of
the flesh. But neither Fielding nor Daudet is guilty of sentimentality,
the one unforgivable crime in art. In his treatment of the relation of
the sexes Daudet was above all things truthful; his veracity is
inexorable. He shows how man is selfish in love and woman also, and how
the egotism of the one is not as the egotism of the other. He shows how
Fanny Legrand slangs her lover with the foul language of the gutter
whence she sprang, and how Jean when he strikes back, refrains from
foul blows. He shows how Jean, weak of will as he was, gets rid of the
millstone about his neck, only because of the weariness of the woman to
whom he has bound himself. He shows us the various aspects of the love
which is not founded on esteem, the Hettema couple, De Potter and Rose,
Dechelette and Alice Dore, all to set off the sorry idyl of Fanny and
Jean.

In "Numa Roumestan" there is a larger vision of life than in "Sapho,"
even if there is no deeper insight. The construction is almost as
severe; and the movement is unbroken from beginning to end, without
excursus or digression. The central figure is masterly,--the kindly and
selfish Southerner, easy-going and soft-spoken, an orator who is so
eloquent that he can even convince himself, a politician who thinks
only when he is talking, a husband who loves his wife as profoundly as
he can love anybody except himself, and who loves his wife more than
his temporary mistress, even during the days of his dalliance. Numa is
a native of the South of France, as was Daudet himself; and it is out
of the fulness of knowledge that the author evolves the character,
brushing in the portrait with bold strokes and unceasingly adding
caressing touches till the man actually lives and moves before our
eyes. The veracity of the picture is destroyed by no final
inconsistency. What Numa is, Numa will be. Daudet never descends at the
end of his novels like a god from the machine to change character in
the twinkling of an eye, and to convert bad men to good thoughts and
good deeds.

He can give us goodness when he chooses, a human goodness, not
offensively perfect, not preaching, not mawkish, but high-minded and
engaging. There are two such types in "Kings in Exile," the Queen and
Elysee Mer