and Virginia

Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint Pierre was born at Havre on
January 19, 1737. Like many boys that are natives of seaports,
he was anxious to become a sailor; but a single voyage cured
him of his desire for a seafaring life, although not of his
love for travel. For some years afterwards he was a rolling
stone, sometimes soldier and sometimes engineer, visiting one
European country after another. In 1771 he obtained a
government appointment in Mauritius, a spot which was the
subject of his first book (see TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE, Vol.
XIX), and which was afterwards made the scene of "Paul and
Virginia." In his "Nature Studies," 1783, he showed an
enthusiasm for nature that contrasted vividly with the
artificiality of most eighteenth-century writers; but his fame
was not established until he had set all the ladies of France
weeping with his "Paul and Virginia," perhaps the most
sentimental book ever written. It was published in 1787, and
although it does not cause in modern readers the tearful
raptures that it provoked on its first appearance, its fame
has survived as the most notable work of a romantic and
nature-loving sentimentalist with remarkable powers of
narration. Saint Pierre died on January 21, 1814.

_I.--The Home Among the Rocks_

On the eastern declivity of the mountain which rises behind Port Louis,
in the Isle of France, are still to be seen, on a spot of ground
formerly cultivated, the ruins of two little cottages. They are situated
almost in the midst of a basin formed by enormous rocks, with only one
opening, from which you may look upon Port Louis and the sea.

I took pleasure in retiring to this place, where one can at once enjoy
an unbounded prospect and profound solitude. One day, as I was sitting
near the cottages, an elderly man approached me. His hair was completely
white, his aspect simple and majestic. I saluted him, and he sat down
beside me.

"Can you inform me, father," I asked, "to whom these two cottages
belonged?"

"My son," replied he, "these ruins were inhabited by two families, which
there found the means of true happiness. But who will deign to take an
interest in the history, however affecting, of a few obscure
individuals?"

"Father," I replied, "relate to me, I beseech you, what you know of
them; and be assured that there is no man, however depraved by