Around a Spring

by Gustave Droz, M.S.

Excerpt:

Spite oi the delay, I wish to make one remark he1e. Let those who ate in a huny glide over it rapidly. Phoebus is not merely the handsome, pom pous youth, curled ci la Louis XIV., blessing the world from his gilded chariot, and whirling through space as fast as his four coursers can carry him. He likes to peep through the vine branches and pry into iittle corners without caring for decorum, or thinking ot'his plumes, visit poor people, and thrust his laugh ing face into attics. If a place pleases him, he forgets his astronomy, and without the least ceremony in terests himself in botany, and plays with the children.

324 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1869

About the author

Antoine Gustave Droz (1832-1895), French man of letters, son of the sculptor J. A. Droz (1807-1872), was born in Paris. He was educated as an artist, and began to exhibit in the Salon of 1857. A series of sketches dealing gaily and lightly with the intimacies of family life, published in the Vie Parisienne and issued in book form as Monsieur, Madame et Bb (1866), won for the author an immediate and great success. Entre Flous (1867) was built on a similar plan, and was followed by some psychological novels: Le Cahier Bieu de Mile Cibot (1868), Autour Dune Source (1869), Un Paquet de Lettres (1870), Babolein (1872), Les Etangs (1875) and L'Enfant (1885). His Tristesses et Sourires (1884) is a delicate analysis of the niceties of family intercourse and its difficulties. Droz's first book was translated into English under the title of Monsieur, Madame and Bebe (1887).