VI PREFACE

If the notes appear too fréquent or too helpful, a somewhat lengthy expérience in teaching language has convinced me that it is better to err in this direction than in the opposite, if a teacher wishes to interest his pupils in an author's literary work and style.

The sketch entitled " André Gill " was written especially for this volume, and illustrâtes a différent mood of the Author from that which appears in the other sélections.

Grateful a'cknowledgments are due to M. Daudet, Prof. A. N. van Daell, and Mr. Geo. W. Rollins, for valuable suggestions and help in reading proofs.

Alphonse Daudet was born May 13, 1840, at Nimes, "une ville de Languedoc où l'on trouve, comme dans toutes les villes du Midi, beaucoup de soleil, pas mal de poussière, un couvent de Carmélites et deux ou trois monuments romains," and hère he passed the first nine years of his life. At the end of that time his father, a silk manufacturer, was obliged by the décline of his business to change his résidence to Lyons, The removal proved of little advantage to stay his falling fortunes, and in seven years more came the financial end. The family was broken up ; the father vainly sought lucrative employment elsewhere, thç mother returned to her native Languedoc, an older brother Ernest went to Paris to seek his fortune in its literary world, and Alphonse, who had just finished his course of study at the lycée in Lyons but was too poor to take his degree, became usher at the collège of Alais, where his great-uncle had once been principal. Timid, puny, near-sighted, a mère boy of sixteen years, he found his life hère one long martyrdom at the hands of his cruel pupils, and he was glad after a few months service to join his brother Ernest in Paris, to share his poverty and toil, his hopes and trials. In Le Petit Chose^ the first half of which is fairly autobiographical, he paints most vividly the scènes and impressions of his life up