oun_'s and too much _ts_ and _dz_ in the pronunciation. So
that the Provencal language, in spite of everything, keeps a certain
patois vulgarity. It forces the poet, so to say, to perpetual
song-making. It must be very difficult, in that language, to have an
individual style, still more difficult to express abstract ideas. But it
is a merry language."

The play has never yet been performed, and until a trial is made, one is
inclined to think it would not be effective, except as a spectacle. It
is curious that the Troubadours produced no dramatic literature
whatever, and that the same lack is found in the modern revival.

Aubanel's _Lou Pan dou Pecat_ (The Bread of Sin), written in 1863, and
performed in 1878 at Montpellier, seems to have been successful, and
was played at Paris at the Theatre Libre in 1888, in the
verse-translation made by Paul Arene. Aubanel wrote two other plays,
_Lou Pastre_, which is lost, and _Lou Raubaton_, a work that must be
considered unfinished. Two plays, therefore, constitute the entire
dramatic production in the new language.

PART THIRD

CONCLUSIONS

CONCLUSIONS

It would be idle to endeavor to determine whether Mistral is to be
classed as a great poet, or whether the Felibres have produced a great
literature, and nothing is defined when the statement is made that
Mistral is or is not a great poet. His genius may be said to be limited
geographically, for if from it were eliminated all that pertains
directly to Provence, the remainder would be almost nothing. The only
human nature known to the poet is the human nature of Provence, and
while it is perfectly true that a human being in Provence could be
typical of human nature in general, and arouse interest in all men
through his humanity common to all, the fact is, that Mistral has not
sought to express what is of universal interest, but has invariably
chosen to present human life in its Provencal aspects and from one point
of view only. A second limitation is found in the unvarying exteriority
of his method of presenting human nature. Never does he probe deeply
into the souls of his Provencals. Very vividly indeed does he reproduce
their words and gestures; but of the deeper under-currents, the inner
conflicts, the agonies of doubt and indecision, the bitterness of
disappointments, the lofty aspirations toward a higher inner life or a
closer communion with the universe, the moral problems that shake a
human soul, not