iments, then, that are expressed in the shorter poems
of Mistral, written since the publication of _Mireio_, have been, in the
main, the ancient glories and liberties of Provence, a clinging to
national traditions, to local traditions, and to the religion and ideas
of ancestors, a profound dislike of certain modern ideas of progress,
hatred of the levelling influence of Paris, love of the Provencal
speech, belief in the Latin race, in the Roman Catholic Church, unshaken
faith in the future, love of the ideal and hatred of what is servile and
sordid, an ardent love of Nature, an intense love of life and movement.
These things are reflected in every variety of word and figure. He is
not the poet of the romantic type, self-centred, filling his verse with
the echoes of his own loves and joys and woes, nor is his poetry as
large as humanity; Provence, France, the Latin race, are the limits
beyond which it has no message or interest.

Possibly no poet ever wrote as many lines to laud the language he was
using. Such lines abound in each volume he has produced.

"Se la lengo di moussu
Toumbo en gargavaio
Se tant d'escrivan coussu
Pescon de ravaio,
Nautri, li bon Prouvencau
Vers li serre li plus aut
Enauren la lengo
De nosti valengo."

If the language of the messieurs falls among the sweepings, if so
many comfortably well-off writers fish for small fry, we, the good
Provencals, toward the highest summits, raise the language of our
valleys.

The Sirventes addressed to the Catalan poets begins:--

"Fraire de Catalougno, escoutas! Nous an di
Que fasias peralin revieure e resplendi
Un di rampau de nosto lengo."

Brothers from Catalonia, listen! We have heard that ye cause one of
the branches of our language to revive and flourish yonder.

In the same poem, the poet sings of the Troubadours, whom none have
since surpassed, who in the face of the clergy raised the language of
the common people, sang in the very ears of the kings, sang with love,
and sang freely, the coming of a new world and contempt for ancient
fears, and later on he says:--

"From the Alps to the Pyrenees, hand in hand, poets, let us then raise
up the old Romance speech! It is the sign of the family, the sacrament
that binds the sons to the forefathers, man to the soil! It is the
thread that holds the nest in the branches. Fearless guardians of our
beautiful speech,