microscopic growth has darkened the exquisite hollow of the
throat. And yet such is the human charm of the figure that you
almost fancy you are gazing at a living presence.... Perhaps the
profile is less artistically real,--statuesque to the point of
betraying the chisel; but when you look straight up into the
sweet creole face, you can believe she lives: all the wonderful
West Indian charm of the woman is there.

She is standing just in the centre of the Savane, robed in the
fashion of the First Empire, with gracious arms and shoulders
bare: one hand leans upon a medallion bearing the eagle profile
of Napoleon.... Seven tall palms stand in a circle around her,
lifting their comely heads into the blue glory of the tropic day.
Within their enchanted circle you feel that you tread holy
ground,--the sacred soil of artist and poet;--here the
recollections of memoir-writers vanish away; the gossip of
history is hushed for you; you no longer care to know how rumor
has it that she spoke or smiled or wept: only the bewitchment of
her lives under the thin, soft, swaying shadows of those feminine
palms.... Over violet space of summer sea; through the vast
splendor of azure light, she is looking back to the place of her

birth, back to beautiful drowsy Trois-Islets,--and always with
the same half-dreaming, half-plaintive smile,--unutterably
touching....

[Illustration: STATUE OF JOSEPHINE.]