wheat.

"Oh, people of the South, heed my saying: If you wish to win back the
empire of your language, equip yourselves anew by drawing upon this
Treasury."

Such is the sonnet, dated October 7, 1878, which Mistral has placed at
the beginning of his vast dictionary of the dialects of southern France.
The title of the work is _Lou Tresor dóu Felibrige_ or _Dictionnaire
provençal-français_. It is published in two large quarto volumes,
offering a total of 2361 pages. This great work occupied the poet some
ten years, and is the most complete and most important work of its kind
that has been made. The statement that this work represents for the
Provençal dialect what Littré's monumental dictionary is for the
French, is not exaggerated. Nothing that Mistral has done entitles him
in a greater degree to the gratitude of students of Romance philology,
and the fact that the work has been done in so masterful a fashion by
one who is not first of all a philologist excites our wonder and
admiration. And let us not forget that it was above all else a labor of
love, such as probably never was undertaken elsewhere, unless the work
of Ivar Aasen in the Old Norse dialects be counted as such; and there is
something that appeals strongly to the imagination in the thought of
this poet's labor to render imperishable the language so dear to him.
Years were spent in journeying about among all classes of people,
questioning workmen and sailors, asking them the names they applied to
the objects they use, recording their proverbial expressions, noting
their peculiarities of pronunciation, listening to the songs of the
peasants; and then all was reduced to order and we have a work that is
really monumental.