When you find yourself for the first time, upon some unshadowed
day, in the delightful West Indian city of St. Pierre,--supposing
that you own the sense of poetry, the recollections of a
student,--there is apt to steal upon your fancy an impression of
having seen it all before, ever so long ago,--you cannot tell
where. The sensation of some happy dream you cannot wholly
recall might be compared to this feeling. In the simplicity and
solidity of the quaint architecture,--in the eccentricity of
bright narrow streets, all aglow with warm coloring,--in the
tints of roof and wall, antiquated by streakings and patchings of
mould greens and grays,--in the startling absence of window-
sashes, glass, gas lamps, and chimneys,--in the blossom-
tenderness of the blue heaven, the splendor of tropic light, and
the warmth of the tropic wind,--you find less the impression of a
scene of to-day than the sensation of something that was and is
not. Slowly this feeling strengthens with your pleasure in the
colorific radiance of costume,--the semi-nudity of passing
figures,--the puissant shapeliness of torsos ruddily swart like
statue metal,--the rounded outline of limbs yellow as tropic
fruit,--the grace of attitudes,--the unconscious harmony of
groupings,--the gathering and folding and falling of light robes
that oscillate with swaying of free hips,--the sculptural symmetry
of unshod feet. You look up and down the lemon-tinted streets,
--down to the dazzling azure brightness of meeting sky and sea; up
to the perpetual verdure of mountain woods--wondering at the
mellowness of tones, the sharpness of lines in the light, the
diaphaneity of colored shadows; always asking memory: "When?...
where did I see all this... long ago?"....

Then, perhaps, your gaze is suddenly riveted by the vast and solemn