Men forget sooner
     Natural only when alone, and talk well only to themselves
     Obstacles are the salt of all our joys
     One doesn’t offer apologies to a man in his wrath
     People meeting to “have it out” usually say nothing at first
     Silence, alas! is not the reproof of kings alone
     Skilful actor, who apes all the emotions while feeling none
     Sorrows shrink into insignificance as the horizon broadens
     Surprise goes for so much in what we admire
     The very smell of books is improving
     The looks of the young are always full of the future
     There are some blunders that are lucky; but you can’t tell
     To be your own guide doubles your pleasure
     You a law student, while our farmers are in want of hands
     You must always first get the tobacco to burn evenly
     You ask Life for certainties, as if she had any to give you

FROMONT AND RISLER

By Alphonse daudet

With a Preface by Leconte de Lisle, of the French Academy

ALPHONSE DAUDET

Nominally Daudet, with the Goncourts and Zola, formed a trio representing Naturalism in fiction.  He adopted the watchwords of that school, and by private friendship, no less than by a common profession of faith, was one of them.  But the students of the future, while recognizing an obvious affinity between the other two, may be puzzled to find Daudet’s name conjoined with theirs.

Decidedly, Daudet belonged to the Realistic School.  But, above all, he was an impressionist.  All that can be observed—­the individual picture, scene, character—­Daudet will render with wonderful accuracy, and all his novels, especially those written after 1870, show an increasing firmness of touch, limpidity of style, and wise simplicity in the use of the sources of pathetic emotion, such as befit the cautious Naturalist.  Daudet wrote stories, but he had to be listened to.  Feverish as his method of writing was—­true to his Southern character he took endless pains to write well, revising every manuscript three times over from beginning to end.  He wrote from the very midst of the human comedy; and it is from this that he seems at times to have caught the bodily warmth and the taste of the tears and the very ring of the laughter of men and women.  In the earlier novels, perhaps, the transitions from episode to episode or from scene to scene are often abrupt, suggesting the manner of the Goncourts.  But to Zola he forms an instructive contrast, of the same school, but not of the same family.  Zola is methodical, Daudet spontaneous.  Zola works with documents, Daudet from the living fact.  Zola is objective, Daudet with equal scope and fearlessness shows more personal feeling and hence more delicacy.  And in style also Zola is vast, architectural; Daudet slight, rapid, subtle, lively, suggestive.  And finally, in their philosophy of life, Zola may inspire a hate of vice and wrong, but Daudet wins a love for what is good and true.