bells, and with the familiar scenes of home. The hot-blooded
southerner kills his rival, as he may the object of his passion. The
sentiment of which I am speaking is fatal only to him who is possessed
by it, and this is why the people of Brittany are so chaste a race.
Their lively imagination creates an aerial world which satisfies their
aspirations. The true poetry of such a love as this is the sonnet on
spring in the Song of Solomon, which is far more voluptuous than it is
passionate. "Hiems transiit; imber abiit et recessit.... Vox turturis
audita est in terra nostra.... Surge, amica mea, et veni."


[Footnote 1: What grand _landwehr_ leaders they would have made! There
are no such men in the present day.]




THE FLAX-CRUSHER

PART IV.


My mother, resuming her story, went on to say:--

"We are all, as a matter of fact, at the mercy of our illusions, and
the proof of this is that in many cases nothing is easier than to
take in Nature by devices which she is unable to distinguish from the
reality. I shall never forget the daughter of Marzin, the carpenter in
the High Street, who, losing her senses owing to a suppression of the
maternal sentiment, took a log of wood, dressed it up in rags, placed