the immediate region. He had no more ambitious aim than to raise the
patois of Saint-Rémy out of the veritable mire into which it had sunk;
it pained him to see that the speech of his fireside was never used in
writing except for trifles and obscenities. Of him is told the touching
story that one day, while reciting in his home before a company of
friends some poems in French that he had written, he observed tears in
his mother's eyes. She could not understand the poetry his friends so
much admired. Roumanille, much moved, resolved to write no verses that
his mother could not enjoy, and henceforth devoted himself ardently to
the task of purifying and perfecting the dialect of Saint-Rémy. It has
been said, no less truthfully than poetically, that from a mother's tear
was born the new Provençal poetry, destined to so splendid a career.

We of the English-speaking race are apt to wonder at this love of a
local dialect. This vigorous attempt to create a first-rate literature,
alongside and independent of the national literature, seems strange or
unnatural. We are accustomed to one language, spoken over immense areas,
and we rejoice to see it grow and spread, more and more perfectly
unified. With all their local color, in spite of their expression of
provincial or colonial life, the writings of a Kipling are read and
enjoyed wherever the English language has penetrated. In Italy we find
patriots and writers working with utmost energy to bring into being a
really national language. Nearly all the governments of Europe seek to
impose the language of the capital upon the schools. Unification of
language seems a most desirable thing, and, superficially considered,
the tendency would appear to be in that direction. But the truth is that
there exists all over Europe a war of tongues. The Welsh, the Basques,
the Norwegians, the Bohemians, the Finns, the Hungarians, are of one
mind with Daudet and Mistral, who both express the sentiment, "He who
holds to his language, holds the key of his prison."