a syllable. Nor is he a poet who pours out his own soul
into verse.

External nature is for him, again, nature as seen in Provence. The rocks
and trees, the fields and the streams, do not awaken in him a stir of
emotions because of their power to compel a mood in any responsive
poetic soul, but they excite him primarily as the rocks and trees, the
fields and streams of his native region. He is no mere word-painter.
Rarely do his descriptions appear to exist for their own sake. They
furnish a necessary, fitting, and delightful background to the action of
his poems. They are too often indications of what a Provencal ought to
consider admirable or wonderful, they are sometimes spoiled by the
poet's excessive partiality for his own little land. His work is ever
the work of a man with a mission.

There is no profound treatment of the theme of love. Each of the long
poems and his play have a love story as the centre of interest, but the
lovers are usually children, and their love utterly without
complications. There is everywhere a lovely purity, a delightful
simplicity, a straightforward naturalness that is very charming, but in
this theme as in the others, Mistral is incapable of tragic depths and
heights. So it is as regards the religious side of man's nature. The
poet's work is filled with allusions to religion; there are countless
legends concerning saints and hermits, descriptions of churches and the
papal palace, there is the detailed history of the conversion of
Provence to Christianity, but the deepest religious spirit is not his.
Only twice in all his work do we come upon a profounder religious sense,
in the second half of _Lou Prego-Dieu_ and in _Lou Saume de la
Penitenci_. There is no doubt that Mistral is a believer, but religious
feeling has not a large place in his work; there are no other
meditations upon death and destiny.

And this _ame du Midi, spirit of Provence_, the genius of his race that
he has striven to express, what is it? How shall it be defined or
formulated? Alphonse Daudet, who knew it, and loved it, whose Parisian
life and world-wide success did not destroy in him the love of his
native Provence, who loved the very food of the Midi above all others,
and jumped up in joy when a southern intonation struck his ear, and who
was continually beset with longings to return to the beloved region, has
well defined it. He was the friend of Mistral and followed the poet's
efforts and achievements with