INTRODUCTORY NOTE

No récent French writer bas been more successful in hitting the popular taste than Georges Ohnet. That he occupies a high rank in the world of letters can scarcely be asserted. But that he bas appealed strongly to the large body of wbat may be called middle-class readers is évidence of no slight literary and constructive skill; and it raust be admitted that his writings are far more edifying and healthful in tone than the mass of current "natnralistic^^ fiction, against which they express a protest and reaction. It is precisely this opposition to the dominant fashion in French literature that bas brought down on Ohnet^s head the malédiction of the critics. So fierce bas been the assault that a reviewer once proposed the foundation of a society " for the protection of M. Ohnet/' But notwithstanding ail this outcry his novels bave steadily gained in popularity.

Ohnet's model may be said to be George Sand. While he is not to be compared with that writer in literary power, his stories are, like hers, frankly romantic and full of movement. They are real stories, and not mère studies. His heroes and heroines bave something in them to admire. The heroes bave noble sentiments which are commonplace enough to be true, and the