e and die with the turn of the
season? Do not the civilizations of the past with their perfection of
knowledge and art mock our faith in the permanency of human achievement?
Babylon and Egypt, Athens and Rome carried the seed of corruption within
their husk of glory. They had elaborate systems of social organization,
of laws, of elucidation of the mysteries of life. They saw beauty and
pursued it, in colour and sound, by word and chisel. The gods were kind
to them, and now and then dispensed with altar and temple. Divine
presences revealed themselves in brook and cornfield, on mountain-tops
and in the faces of animals. Reformers of all kinds were amongst them:
men of the sword with dreams of Empire and conquest for the good of the
nation, priests who demanded sacrifice in the name of a god, orators who
by skilful laying of words taught the art of philosophic calm. Problems
faced them, social iniquities troubled them; they grappled with morals
and strove to build up a better and happier future.

I was sinking into a reverie over the fall of Babylon and the problems
of recurrence when Marie-Joseph arrived. Marie-Joseph is my oldest and
dearest peasant friend. She is over seventy and devoted to hard work.
Her face is rosy and wrinkled, and when she laughs it becomes a mass of
merry furrows. Her body gives one the impression of an animated board.
It is strikingly flat and stiff, and proudly erect. She works in the
fields and tends the cows, and when she bends down to hoe the potatoes
or cut the grass, she just folds herself in two. The stiff straight back
in the neat black dress is different from all the other toiling backs on
the slopes. When I look down from the mountain-tops to the pastures and
plots below, I can always distinguish the back of Marie-Joseph from the
others. To-day she brought me a present of milk and potatoes, and we sat
down to chat over a cup of coffee--nay, four cups of coffee, for
Marie-Joseph has no cranky ideas about abstinence from food and drink,
and I must, perforce, pretend I have none. I love her and her ways,
though she always manages to disturb me when I wish to work or think.
Writing and thinking are not work to Marie-Joseph. She is wholly
innocent of the former dissipation and carries out the latter function
without any trouble or fuss. She is, therefore, justified in disposing
of my painful efforts with a contemptuous shrug of her wooden
shoulders.

"Marie-Joseph," I said cautiously, when