For his
background he has chosen, has made his own and conveys very vividly
to his readers, a district of France, gloomy, in spite of its
almonds, its [123] oil and wine, but certainly grandiose. The large
towns, the sparse hamlets, the wide landscape of the Cevennes, are
for his books what the Rhineland is to those delightful authors,
Messrs. Erckmann-Chatrian. In Les Courbezon, the French Vicar of
Wakefield, as Sainte-Beuve declared, with this imposing background,
the Church and the world, as they shape themselves in the Cevennes,
the priest and the peasant, occupy about an equal share of interest.
Sometimes, as in the charming little book we wish now to introduce,
unclerical human nature occupies the foreground almost exclusively;
though priestly faces will still be found gazing upon us from time to
time.
In form, the book is a bundle of letters from a Parisian litterateur
to the friend of his boyhood, now the cure of one of those mountain
villages. He is refreshing himself, in the midst of dusty,
sophisticated Paris, with memories of their old, delightful
existence--vagabonde, libre, agreste, pastorale--in their upland
valley. He can appeal safely to the aged cure's friendly justice,
even in exposing delicacies of sentiment which most men conceal:--
[124] "As for you, frank, certain of your own mind, joyous of heart,
methinks scarce understanding those whose religion makes their souls
tremble instead of fortifying them--you, I am sure, take things by
the large and kindly side of human life.
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