8 STORIES FROM DAUDET

Have I not often made you water my
garden instead of learning your lessons.
And when I wanted to fish for trout,
did I ever hesitate to dismiss you?’

Then from one thing to another
M. Hamel began to talk to us about
the French language, saying that it
was the most beautiful language in the
world, the clearest, the most solid;
that we must guard it among us and
never forget it, because when a people
falls into slavery, as long as it holds
firmly to its own tongue, it holds the
key of its prison. Then he took a
grammar and gave us our lesson. I
was astonished to find how well I
understood. All he said seemed to
me so easy, so easy. I think, too, that
I never had listened so hard, and that
he had never taken such pains to ex-
plain. One would have said that
before going away the poor man
wished to give us all his knowledge,
to ram it all into our heads at one
blow.