Through all his writings, and throughout his correspondence, there are
beautiful proofs of the tenderness of his feelings,--the most essential
quality, perhaps, in any writer. It is at least, one that if not
possessed, can never be attained. The familiarity of his imagination
with natural objects, when he was living far removed from them, is
remarkable, and often affecting.

"I have arranged," he says to Mr. Henin, his friend and patron, "very
interesting materials, but it is only with the light of Heaven over
me that I can recover my strength. Obtain for me a _rabbit's hole_, in
which I may pass the summer in the country." And again, "With the _first
violet_, I shall come to see you." It is soothing to find, in passages
like these, such pleasing and convincing evidence that

"Nature never did betray,
The heart that loved her."

In the noise of a great city, in the midst of annoyances of many kinds
these images, impressed with quietness and beauty, came back to the mind
of St. Pierre, to cheer and animate him.

In alluding to his miseries, it is but fair to quote a passage from
his "Voyage," which reveals his fond remembrance of his native land. "I
should ever prefer my own country to every other," he says, "not because
it was more beautiful, but because I was brought up in it. Happy he,
who sees again the places where all was loved, and all was lovely!--the
meadows in which he played, and the orchard that he robbed!"

He returned to this country, so fondly loved and deeply cherished in
absence, to experience only trouble and difficulty. Away from it, he had