Épinal

“ The fortifications of Épinal are connected to the southward with Belfort, Dijon and Besançon, by the fortified line of the Moselle, and north of it lies the unfortified zone called the Trouée d’Épinal, a gap designedly left open to the invaders between Épinal and Toul, another great fortress which is itself connected by the Meuse forts d’arrêt with Verdun and the places of the north-east. Épinal therefore is a fortress of the greatest possible importance to the defence of France, and its works, all built since 1870, are formidable permanent fortifications. ”

“ The chivalrous King was delighted with the adventure, only wishing he had shared in the rescue of the captive princesses. ‘Young blood,’ he said. ‘Youth has all the guerdons reserved for it, while age is lagging behind.’
Yet so soon as Sir Patrick Drummond had overtaken him at Epinal, he had turned back to Nanci, and it was in consequence of what he there heard that he had set forth to bring the robbers of Balchenburg to reason. ”

“ Épinal prints, you see, are stories, and stories are mirrors of destiny. Blessed is the child that is brought up on fairy-tales. His riper years should prove rich in wisdom and imagination. And see! here is my own favourite story The Blue Bird. I know him by his outspread tail. ‘Tis he right enough. It is as much as I can do to prevent myself flinging my arms round the old shop-woman’s neck and kissing her flabby cheeks. The Blue Bird, ah me, what a debt I owe him! If I have ever wrought any good in my life, it is all due to him. ”

“ The purpose of this line, the separate forts of which command the relatively few lines of advance from upper Alsace through the Vosges, is to deflect a possible German invasion from Alsace either towards Belfort or towards the open gap between Épinal and Toul called the Trouée d’Épinal. ”

“ The ardent soul of Détanger had thrown his talent overboard, as a wandering apostle might fling from his wallet some useless bauble and go on unencumbered save by his staff and scrip. His last two books, the famous ones—Le Chemin de la Victoire and Le Conquérant—have indeed little literary grace and no sort of style; they are like those varnished Images d’Epinal in cut-out coloured paper which bring to the humblest cottage a sort of symbol of the wars of Napoleon, of the glories of Turenne ”

“ From Sierck to Wasserbillig it forms the frontier between the Rhine Province and Luxemburg, then, turning N.E., it follows a sinuous course and reaches the Rhine at Coblenz. The principal towns on the banks of the Mosel are, in France: Remiremont, Épinal, Toul and Pont-à-Mousson ”

“ You are too young and too pretty a mistress of the house to pass for a chaperon, and Aline, instead of being a help, would be one inconvenience the more. So your aunt must stay here until my return."
"And by that time Constance and Baptiste will be both cured and her anger will have passed away. You did not tell me about this trip to Epinal nor the selling of the woodland."
"Go to your aunt's room before she retires to bed," replied Bergenheim, without paying any attention to this remark, and seating himself in the armchair; "I will wait for you here. ”

“ Reckoning from the year 1911, France appears to have nineteen military dirigibles, and she may have one or two older ones in repair. Some of these are building; and as in France there are many eminent aëronautical factories, there are always also a number of private airships built, or in building, of various sizes and various types. These firms have enormous private airship hangars, and every convenience for making, filling, and storing. The number of military hangars in France is seven, at the following towns: Epinal, Maubeuge, Belfort, Rheims, Toul, and Verdun, where there are two. ”

“ Epinglard falls into a meditative pose, his elbow in one hand, his chin in the other, and looks long at the young girl, scrutinizing not only the line and modelling of the body, but the expression of the face, the eyes, the shade and nature of the hair, reading her temperament with the lucidity of a phrenologist aided by the divination of a plastic artist who has had great experience of feminine humanity. The examination lasts many minutes, and finally, as if under the inspiring influence of the god of taste, Epinglard, in broken phrases, composes the dress: "Toilette entirely of tulle ... ”

“ Beyond these rich masses of foliage, to which the sun lent additional splendour, at the utmost extremity of the pastures, rose the irregular ridge of the Apennines, whose deep blue presented a striking contrast to the glowing colours of the foreground. I fixed my eyes on the chain of distant mountains, and indulged, as usual, my conjectures of what was going forward on their summits; of those who tended goats on the edge of the precipice; traversed, at this moment, the dark thickets of pines, and passed their lives in yonder sheds, contented and unknown. ”

“ As thus she spoke, the Elf took from her bosom a graceful flower, whose snow-white leaves shone with a strange, soft light. “This is a fairy flower,” said the Elf, “invisible to every eye save yours; now listen while I tell its power, Annie. When your heart is filled with loving thoughts, when some kindly deed has been done, some duty well performed, then from the flower there will arise the sweetest, softest fragrance, to reward and gladden you. ”

“ And here alights a tiny sprite, whose magic touch evokes even from the same leaf a cherry, or a coral bead, perhaps a huge green apple! How many of us have seen the little elf that spends her life among the tangles of creeping cinque-foil, and decks its stems with those brilliant scarlet beads which we may always find upon them, looking verily like tempting berries.
We see here about us swarms of these busy elves in obedience to their own peculiar mischievous promptings. What whispers this glittering midge to the oak twig here to which she clings so closely? We may not guess ”

“ Of course the Dear Princess of the Crystal Mountain wore the great opal on the day that she was married to the Prince of the Far Land over the Hill. And when she was an old, old Princess, with white hair instead of dark, she often showed the opal to her grandchildren, and told them how it was made of blue sea, and green shadows, and fire, melted all together by the fairies and mixed with mist of sunshine. ”

“ The oak for strength, the ash for mystery, the birch for her feminine grace and so forth; but the pine, like a sharp sword, pierces straight through to that inner sense of beauty which accepts or rejects beyond all question of analysis. The personality of this “common” tree touches the same sense of wonder that is stirred by the presence of a human personality, strong beyond ordinary; and worship is ever subtly linked with wonder. ”

“ But when we dissect the dorsal, and find that its superior ray is supported in its position by a peg in a notch at its base, and that when the fin is to be lowered, the peg has to be taken out, and when it is raised put in again; although we are filled with wonder at the ingenuity of the mechanical contrivance, all our sense of beauty is gone, and not to be recovered until we again see the fin playing on the animal's body, apparently by its own will alone, with the life running along its rays. ”

“ Others, again, are sometimes red inside, perfused with a beautiful blush, fairy food, too beautiful to eat,—apple of the Hesperides, apple of the evening sky! But like shells and pebbles on the sea-shore, they must be seen as they sparkle amid the withering leaves in some dell in the woods, in the autumnal air, or as they lie in the wet grass, and not when they have wilted and faded in the house. ”

“ The maiden bud is as sweet to look upon as the rose, but he who loves not merely color but perfume too—I mean refreshment, emotion and edification of spirit—must turn to the full-blown flower; as the rose—growers of lake Moeris twine only the buds of their favorite flower into wreaths and bunches, but cannot use them for extracting the oil of imperishable fragrance ”

“ But not for me the Royal Pearls to bind about my hair,
"Pearls were too passionless," you said, for one like me to wear,
I must have all the splendour, all the jewels warm as wine,
But pearls so pale and cold were meant for other flesh than mine. ”

“ Whose laurels wail thee with a shivering sound!—
And I—I pine through all the joyous day,
Through the long night I pine,—as fondly pines
The night's own bird, dissolving her lorn life
To song in moonlight woods.—Thou hear'st me not! ”

“ And all the time, you have the most absurd sense of being set free from something. By-and-by when eye and ear are attuned, you will see the light reflected from the pine needles glistening like metal, and hear the click of the same needles like fairy castanets of joy. Meantime, take a long, deep, full breath of these condensed sunbeams spiced with the incense of the primeval woods ”

“ ASPEN.—A legend referring to the tremulous motion of this tree (Populus tremula—see Poplar) is to the following effect:—“At the awful hour of the Passion, when the Saviour of the world felt deserted in His agony, when earth, shaken with horror, rang the parting knell for Deity, and universal nature groaned: then, from the loftiest tree to the lowliest flower, all felt a sudden thrill, and trembling bowed their heads, all save the Aspen, which said: ‘Why should we weep and tremble? ”

“ The sun has its spots, the diamond its flaws, and perfection itself its little weak points. Eponine, it must be owned, has an overmastering fondness for fish, a taste she shares in common with all her race. ”

“ A traveller from Central America brought home a splendid rough fire opal which dazzled the eye with its fiery reflections. We took it to an honest lapidary, who received it with a doubtful look. The next day the opal was returned, having been shaped into the usual oval form, but only a faint gleam of any of the colored rays flashed from its surface, or the interior. “Is this the gem we gave you yesterday?” we demanded of the artisan. With a smile the lapidary took the transparent stone and roughened its finely polished surface upon the wooden wheel. ”

“ The surges of the sea come and go, the tree-tops in the forest bow and rise, fog and mist roll away and part asunder hither and thither, and up there I feel myself so merged with the creation that surrounds me that often it even seems as though it were my own breath that gives it life. ”

“ The art of imitating flowers in wax is, perhaps, the most beautiful method known of preserving a life-like representation of garden-gems, as the form, color, and texture can be imitated to perfection; while artistic feeling on the part of the student is required to complete the idea that flowers can be made to resemble nature in every respect, as regards form, color, the texture, stamens, and other parts of the natural flower. ”

“ The gracefully swaying branches of the stately elm or weeping willow remind him of some woman whose elegant form and manners make her as lovely as the moon and as beautiful as light. The rapid and constant motion of the foliage of the poplar and the aspen reminds him of some nervous and excitable person who is never quiet or easy for a moment. ”

“ The epithet "closing" is happily applied to woods just bursting into foliage, and the epithet "many-twinkling" is exquisitely appropriate to the leaves of the aspen, which, when every other tree is still, and the air can hardly be felt to stir, dance up and down incessantly, with an endless play of light and shadow, and rustle as they wave joyously to and fro. ”

“ One thinks of the shimmering flashes in the heart of an opal, of the flame of phosphorus, of the most delicate colour on a blue bird's throat—there is no similitude for that which has no match, nothing else upon the earth which is not gross when set beside these waves of purest light, impalpable, unsubstantial, and radiantly clear. ”

“ Yet speaking of decay. The aspiring pine
Wears his undying green; but the strong oak,
Like smitten giant, casts his honours down,
Strewing brown earth with emerald and gold.
Yon lofty elms, the glory of our land,
So lately drooping 'neath their weight of leaves,
With proud, yet graceful elegance, to earth,
Stand half in nakedness, and half in show
Of gaudy colours. ”

“ Who knows what the human body would expand and flow out to under a more genial heaven? Is not the hand a spreading palm leaf with its lobes and veins? The ear may be regarded, fancifully, as a lichen, umbilicaria, on the side of the head, with its lobe or drop. ”

“ The beautiful clusters of rosy bells, with their pink bars, and delicate fragrance, claim for it a place in the garden, where, however, we do not meet with it, but on open banks and by the side of roads or cultivated fields. It is well approved, too, by the insect tribe, who are, in general, much more appreciative judges of color and odor than we are. ”

“ For some of the darkest and most unshapely stones and pebbles, when polished by the hand of art, display a mixture of the most delicate and variegated colours. All which beauties and varieties in the scene around us are entirely owing to that property, in every ray of light, by which it is capable of being separated into the primitive colours. ”

“ One day he saw a youth upon the green having in his hand a glittering fairy branch with nine apples of red. And whensoever the branch was shaken, wounded men and women enfeebled by illness would be lulled to sleep by the sound of the very sweet fairy music which those apples uttered, nor could any one upon earth bear in mind any want, woe, or weariness of soul when that branch was shaken for him. ”

“ Some trees try to hide their troubles, and quickly cover up their wounds; but the Aspen has a very touchy skin and, once it is wounded, it shows the scar as long as it lives. We can, therefore, go to any Aspen tree, and have it tell us the story of its life. ”