at he more than once
seriously contemplated committing suicide. But fate had something better
in store for _le petit Daudet_, and his seventeenth birthday found him
in Paris sharing his brother Ernest's garret, having arrived in the
great city with just forty sous remaining of his little store, after
spending two days and nights in a third-class carriage.

Even now, there is a touch of protection and maternal affection in the
way in which Ernest Daudet regards his younger brother, and the latter
never mentions his early struggles without recalling the
self-abnegation, generous kindliness, and devotion of "_mon frere_." The
two went through some hard times together. "Ah!" says the great writer,
speaking of those days, "I thought my brother passing rich, for he
earned seventy-five francs a month by being secretary to an old
gentleman at whose dictation he took down his memoirs." And so they
managed to live, going occasionally to the theatre, and seeing not a
little of life, on the sum of thirty shillings a month apiece!

When receiving visitors, the author of _Tartarin_ places himself with
his back to the light on one of the deep, comfortable couches which line
the fireplace of his study, but from out the huge mass of his powerful
head, surrounded by the lionese mane, which has become famous in his
portraits and photographs, gleam two piercing dark eyes, which, like
those of most short-sighted people, seem to perceive what is immediately
before them with an extra intensity of vision.

To ask one who has far outrun his fellows what he thinks of the race
seems a superfluous question. Yet, in answer as to what he would say of
literature as a profession, M. Daudet gave a startlingly clear and
decided answer.

[Illustration: THE BILLIARD AND FENCING ROOM.]

"The man who has it in him to write will do so, however great his
difficulties, but I would never advise any young fellow to make
literature his profession, and I think it is nothing short of madness to
give up a good chance of making your livelihood in some other, though
perhaps less congenial, fashion, in order to pursue the calling of
letters. You would be surprised if you knew the number of young people
who come to me for sympathy with their literary aspirations, and as for
the manuscripts submitted to me, the sending of them back keeps one of
my friends pretty busy, for of late years I have had to refuse to look
at anything sent to me in this way. In vain I say to