r works have
not sufficiently made known.

The task is an immense one; its charm can scarcely be expressed. No one
can understand, who has not been there himself, the delight found in
those far-off retreats, sanctuaries beyond the reach of worldly
troubles. In the case of English literature the delight is the greater
from the fact that those silent realms are not the realms of death
absolute; daylight is perceived in the distance; the continuity of life
is felt. The dead of Westminster have left behind them a posterity,
youthful in its turn, and life-giving. Their descendants move around us;
under our eyes the inheritors of what has been prepare what shall be. In
this lies one of the great attractions of this literature and of the
French one too. Like the French it has remote origins; it is ample,
beautiful, measureless; no one will go the round of it; it is impossible
to write its complete history. An attempt has been made in this line for
French literature; the work undertaken two centuries ago by
Benedictines, continued by members of the Institute, is still in
progress; it consists at this day of thirty volumes in quarto, and only
the year 1317 has been reached. And with all that immense past and those
far-distant origins, those two literatures have a splendid present
betokening a splendid future. Both are alive to-day and vigorous; ready
to baffle the predictions of miscreants, they show no sign of decay.
They are ever ready for transformations, not for death. Side by side or
face to face, in peace or war, both literatures like both peoples have
been in touch for centuries, and in spite of hates and jealousies they
have more than once vivified each other. These actions and reactions
began long ago, in Norman times and even before; when Taillefer sang
Roland, and when Alcuin taught Charlemagne.

The duty of the traveller visiting already visited countries is to not
limit himself to general descriptions, but to make with particular care
the kind of observations for which circumstances have fitted him best.
If he has the eye of the painter, he will trace and colour with
unfailing accuracy hues and outlines; if he has the mind of the
scientist, he will study the formation of the ground and classify the
flora and fauna. If he has no other advantage but the fact that
circumstances have caused him to live in the country, at various times,
for a number of years, in contact with the people, in calm days and
stormy days, he