Mistral

“ It is signed Frédéric Mistral, of the village of Maillane, and I countersign it with my word of honour, which I have never given falsely, and with the full weight of my responsibility.”
This letter was received with jeers by certain papers. “The mistral is incarnated, it appears, in a poem. We shall see if it will be anything except wind.”{278}
But Dumas, content with the effect of the bomb, said, clasping my hand:
“Now, my dear fellow, return to Avignon and get your Mireille printed. We have thrown down the glove, now let the critics talk. They must each one have their say in turn.” ”

“ When later he writes of Provence in the Middle Age, of the days of the Troubadours, his manner does not change; his work offers no analogies here with the French Romantic school.
No poet, it would seem, was ever so in love with his own language; no artist ever so loved the mere material he was using. Mistral loves the words he uses, he loves their sound, he loves to hear them from the lips of those about him; he loves the intonations and the cadences of his verse; his love is for the speech itself aside from any meaning it conveys. A beautiful instrument it is indeed. ”

“ It is the spirit that inspired the sweet Troubadours, and set the voice of Mirabeau thundering like the mistral. The poet proclaims his belief in his race. "For the waves of the ages and their storms and horrors mingle the nations and wipe out frontiers in vain. Mother Earth, Nature, ever feeds her sons with the same milk, her hard breast will ever give the fine oil to the olive; Spirit, ever springing into life, joyous, proud, and living spirit that neighest in the noise of the Rhone and in the wind thereof! ”

“ Imagine, my dear fellow—I had hit upon a plan for a nocturnal visit to my divine lady. Everything was arranged—Lélette, my little laundress, lent us a hand. I entered the garden at eleven o’clock, and by the trellis of the rosetree which creeps to her window, I climbed up. You may imagine how my heart beat! For she, my sovereign lady, had promised to stretch out her dainty hand that I might press thereon my kisses. Heavens!—the shutters opened softly—and a hand, my Frédéric, a hand I quickly recognised was not that of my adored, shook down on my upturned nose—the cinders of a pipe! ”

“ I love you, Vincen, love you!—That is all!”
The river-banks, the close-pruned willows hoary,
Green grass and ambient air, hearing this story,
Were full of glee. But the poor basket-weaver,
“Princess, that thou who art so fair and clever,
Shouldst have a tongue given to wicked lying!
Why, it confounds me! It is stupefying!
“What! thou in love with me? Mirèio,
My poor life is yet happy. Do not go
And make a jest thereof! I might believe
Just for one moment, and thereafter grieve
My soul to death. Ah, no! my pretty maid,
Laugh no more at me in this wise!” he said. ”

“ Good God! the blows of Vincen fall like hail.
Yet ah! what club-like hits the herdsman deals!
And, as their crushing weight the weaver feels,
He whirls as whirls a sling about his foe,
And backward bends to deal his fiercest blow.
"Look your last, villain!" Ere the word said he,
The mighty herdsman seized him bodily,
And flung him o'er his shoulder far away,
As a Provençal shovels wheat. He lay
A moment on his side, not sorely hurt.
"Pick up, O worm!" cried Ourrias,—"pick the dirt
"You have displaced, and eat it, if you will!" ”

“ And “Have you seen Mirèio?” is their cry.
While Ramoun and his wife by the fireside
Are sitting, lost in grief, and swollen-eyed,
And at their hearts the bitterness of death.
“Doubtless,” they said, “her reason wandereth.
Oh, what a mad and wretched maid it is!
Oh, what a heavy, cruel downfall this!
“Oh, dire disgrace! Our beauty and our hope
So with the last of trampers to elope!
Fled with a gypsy! And who shall discover
The secret hole of this kidnapping lover,
Where he the shameless one concealèd hath?”
And, as they spake, they knit their brows in wrath. ”

“ Mistral and his fellow Félibres have much to do with the survival of art and old customs. One of this little band of modern troubadours lives still, as we learn, 300 in the house of his family at St. Remy, and Mistral (as we have seen) is not far away across the plain, faithful always to the land that he loves so deeply and labours so hard to preserve in its ancient beauty, ancient faiths and ancient language. ”

“ Where men have stoned the very saints of God.
"And if, Mirèio, thou couldst see before thee,
As we from empyrean heights of glory,
This world; and what a sad and foolish thing
Is all its passion for the perishing,
Its churchyard terrors,—then, O lambkin sweet,
Mayhap thou wouldst for death and pardon bleat!
"But, ere the wheat-ear hath its feathery birth,
Ferments the grain within the darksome earth,—
Such ever is the law; and even we,
Before we wore our crowns of majesty,
Drank bitter draughts. Therefore, thy soul to stay,
We 'll tell the pains and perils of our way." ”

“ Inside her waist, obeying Vincen's will;
While he, "Hold out thy hands! there are more still!"
"Oh, sweet! The little eyes in each blue head
Are sharp as needles," as Mirèio said
Softly, three more of the wee brood she pressed
Into their smooth, white prison with the rest,
Who, when bestowed within that refuge warm,
Thought they were in their nest and safe from harm.
"Are there more, Vincen?"—"Ay!" he answered her.
"Then, Holy Virgin! you're a sorcerer!"
"Thou simple maid! About St. George's day,
Ten, twelve, and fourteen eggs, these tomtits lay,
Ay, often. ”

“ Saying, "Shake hands! Why, Holy Cross, look here!
What heaps of sheaves, good master, will this year
Cumber your treading-floor!"—"Mayhap," said he:
"We cannot alway judge by what we see.
"Till all is trod, the truth will not be known.
I have known years that promised," he went on,
"Eighty full bushels to the acre fairly,
And yielded in their stead a dozen barely.
Yet let us be content!" And, with a smile,
He shook their hands all round in friendly style,
And gossiped with old Ambroi affably. ”

“ It would be idle to endeavor to determine whether Mistral is to be classed as a great poet, or whether the Félibres have produced a great literature, and nothing is defined when the statement is made that Mistral is or is not a great poet. ”

“ The witch Taven, sat silent, cronching lowly
As lost in thought and utter melancholy,
Holding a sprig of brome, and muttering,
"Some call thee devil's wheat, poor little thing,
"Yet art thou one of God's own signs for good!"
Therewith Mirèio, trembling where she stood,
Was fain to tell why they had sought her thus.
"I knew it!" cried the witch, impervious,
The brome addressing still, with bended head.
"Thou poor field-flower! The trampling flock," she said,
"Browse on thy leaves and stems the whole year long ”

“ There is everywhere a lovely purity, a delightful simplicity, a straightforward naturalness that is very charming, but in this theme as in the others, Mistral is incapable of tragic depths and heights. So it is as regards the religious side of man's nature. ”

“ If she to Arles should fare,
All other maids would hide them in despair;
For, after her, I think the mould was broken.
And what say to the words herself hath spoken,
“‘You I will have!’”—“Why, naught, poor fool! say I:
Let poverty and riches make reply!”
“O father!” Vincen cried, “go, I implore thee,
To Lotus Farm, and tell them all the story!
Tell them to look for virtue, not for gain!
Tell them that I can plough a stony plain,
“Or harrow, or prune vines with any man! ”

“ Mistral is truly the poet of the Midi. One can best see how superior he is as an artist in words by comparing him with the foremost of his fellow-poets. He is a master of language.Pg 246 He has the eloquence, the enthusiasm, the optimism of his race. ”

“ Oh, stay! Life’s in thine eyes.
Ah, if thou couldst do something,” the lad cries,
“For him,—the poor old basket-weaver there,—
My father, worn with toil!” In her despair,
Mirèio bathes the wound, while some bring lint,
And some run to the hills for healing mint.
Then the maid’s mother spake: “Let four men rally,
And to the Fairies’ Cavern, in the valley
They call Enfer, bear up this wounded man.
The deadlier the hurt, the sooner can
The old witch heal. Scale first the cliffs of Baux,
And circling vultures the cave’s mouth will show.” ”

“ The poor woman had long since forgotten the little French which she had learned at school, and the verses which she had inspired were written in a tongue she could not understand. The humble minstrel was a thoughtful soul, and this discovery overwhelmed him with sadness. 'And so,' he mused, 'my mother is debarred from those intellectual joys which delight me. When she has finished her day's toil, she may not listen to noble thoughts expressed in a melodious form. ”

“ His wrath leaped high
As leaps a fiery rocket to the sky.
"Is it your pleasure that I strangle you,
Base churl," he said, "or double you in two?"
And faced him with a look he well might dread,
As when a starving leopard turns her head.
His face was purple, quivered all his frame.
"Oh, better try!" the mocking answer came.
"You 'll roll headfirst upon the gravel, neighbor!
Bah, puny hands! meet for no better labor
Than to twist osiers when they 're supple made;
Or to rob hen-roosts, lurking in the shade!" ”

“ And whets his tusks upon the mountain oaks.
And now young Vincen with his comely looks
Must needs have chosen the herdsman’s very path,
And meets him squarely, boiling o’er with wrath.{82}
Whereas the simple dreamer wandered smiling,
His memory with a sweet tale beguiling,
That he had heard a fond girl whispering
Beneath a mulberry-tree one morn in spring.
Straight is he as a cane from the Durance;
And love, peace, joy, beam from his countenance.
The soft air swells his loose, unbottoned shirt:
His firm, bare feet are by the stones unhurt,
And light as lizard slips he o’er the way. ”

“ It is hardly fair to reckon it as a shortcoming in the poet and apostle of Provence that he presents only what is most beautiful in the life about him. The novelist offers us a faithful and vivid image of the men of his own day. The poet glorifies the past, clings to tradition, and exhorts his countrymen to return to it.
Essentially and above all else a conservative, Mistral has the gravest doubts about so-called modern progress. ”

“ Believers in material progress, those who look for great changes in political and social conditions, will turn from Mistral with indifference. His contentment with present things, and his love of the past, are likely to irritate them. Those who seek in a poet consolation in the personal trials of life, a new message concerning human destiny, a new note in the everlasting themes that the great poets have sung, will be disappointed. ”

“ The verses of Mistral were liquid and melodious, they pleased without intoxicating me. The genius of the young man was not there, the medium was too restricted for his soul; he needed, as did Jasmin, that other singer of indigenous growth, his epic poem in which to spread his wings. He returned to his village, there at his mother’s hearth and beside the flocks to find his last inspirations. On taking{280} leave, he promised to send me the first printed copy of his Mireille.”
After this memorable occasion I paid my farewell respects to Lamartine. ”

“ Some of the Félibres about him are somewhat discouraged, many of them have never set their aspirations as high as he has done, and some look upon his dreams as Utopian. Whatever be the future of the movement he has founded, Mistral's life in its simple oneness, and in its astonishing success, is indeed most remarkable. Provence, the land that first gave the world a literature after the decay of the classic tongues, has awakened again under his magic touch to an active mental life. A second literature is in active being on the soil of France, a second literary language is there a reality. ”

“ Upspringing with clasped hands and utterance wild,
"Your speech is an atrocious insult, child!
Your love 's a thorn that long hath stung us deep.
Alari, the owner of a thousand sheep,
You sent away; and keeper Veran too,
Disgusted with your scorn, his suit withdrew;
"Also the wealthy herdsman, Ourrias,
You treated as a dog and a scapegrace!
Tramp through the country with your beggar, then!
Herd with strange women and with outcast men! ”

“ WHEN violets are blue in the blue shadows
Of the o’erhanging trees,
The youth who stray in pairs about the meadows
Are glad to gather these.
When peace descends upon the troubled Ocean,
And he his wrath forgets,
Flock from Martigue the boats with wing-like motion,
The fishes fill their nets.
And when the girls of Crau bloom into beauty
(And fairer earth knows not) ,
Aye are there suitors ready for their duty
In castle and in cot.
Thus to Mirèio’s home came seeking her
A trio notable,—a horse-tamer,
A herdsman, and a shepherd. ”

“ Like the creations of Victor Hugo's poetry, those of Mistral speak the language of the author. They have his eloquence, his violent energy of figurative speech, his love of the wild, sunny landscapes about them; they thrill as he does, at the memories of the past; they love, asPg 139 he does, enumerations of trees and plants; they have his fondness for action.
The poem is filled with interesting episodes. One that is very striking in the narrative of Esterello we shall here reproduce. ”

“ It lacks the breadth and depth, the everlasting interest. But it is a work of great beauty, of wonderful purity, a sweet story, told in lovely, limpid language, and will cause many eyes to turn awhile from other lands to the sunny landscapes of southern France.
II. CALENDAU. (CALENDAL.)
Mistral spent seven years in elaborating his second epic, as he did in writing his first. The poem had not a popular success, and the reasonPg 128 is not far to seek. The most striking limitation of the poet is his failure to create beings of flesh and blood. ”