THE CHARM of Daudet’s talent comes from its being

charged to an extraordinary degree with his temperament, his

feelings, his instincts, his natural qualities. This, of course, is a

charm in a style only when nature has been generous. To Alphonse

Daudet she has been exceptionally so; she has placed in his hand

an instrument of many chords. A delicate nervous organisation,

active and indefatigable in spite of its delicacy, and familiar with

emotion of almost every kind, equally acquainted with pleasure and

with pain; a light, quick, joyous, yet reflective, imagination, a

faculty of seeing images, making images, at every turn, of

conceiving everything in the visible form, in the plastic spirit; an

extraordinary sensibility to all the impressions of life and a faculty

of language which is in perfect harmony with his wonderful fineness

of perception—these are some of the qualities of which he is the

happy possessor, and which make his equipment for the work he

has undertaken exceedingly rich.—From “Partial Portraits”

(1888).