s reward after his final
exploit, he learns that he has won the love of Esterello. The poet never
goes further in the voluptuous strain, and the mere music of the words,
especially beginning "Ve la mar" is exquisite. They are found in the
first canto. This scene wherein the Princess refuses to wed Calendau is
typical of the poet. The northern temperament is not impressed with
these long tirades, full of ejaculations and apostrophes; they are apt
to seem unnatural, insincere, and theatrical. Intense feeling is not so
verbose in the north. In this particular Mistral is true to his race. We
quote entire the words of Calendau after the refusal of Esterello,
itself full exclamation and apostrophizing:--

"Then I have but won the thirst, the weariness of the midshipman, when
he is about to reach the summit of the mainmast, and sees gleaming at
the limit of the liquid plain naught but water, water eternally! Well,
if thou wilt hear it, listen! and let the heath resound with it! It is
thou, false woman that thou art, it is thou that hast deceived me,
luring me on to believe that at the summit of the peaks I should find
the splendor of a sublime dawn, that after winter spring would come,
that there is nothing so good as the food earned by labor. Thou hast
deceived me, for in the wilderness I found naught but drought; and the
wind of this world and its idle noise, the embarrassment of luxury, and
the din of glory, and what is called the enjoyment of triumph, are not
worth a little hour of love beneath a pine tree! See, from my hand the
bridle escapes, my skull is bursting, and I am not sure now that the
people in their fear are not right in dreading thee like a ghost, now
that I feel, as my reward, thy burning poison streaming through my
heart. Yes, thou art the fairy Esterello, and thou art unmasked at last,
cruel creature! In the chill of thy refusal I have known the viper. Thou
art Esterello, bitter foe to man, haunting the wild places, crowned with
nettles, defending the desert against those who clear the land. Thou art
Esterello, the fairy that sends a shudder through the foliage of the
woods and the hair of the terrified hermit; that fires with the desire
of her perfumed embrace her suitors and in malevolence drives them to
despair with infernal longings.

"My head is bursting, and since from the heights of my supernatural love
a thunderbolt thus hurls me down, since, nothing, nothing henceforth,
from this moment on, can g