hours! Three subjects in twenty-four hours! You frighten me,
sir, for the peril in which you place my muse.

"I must inform you, in all humility, that I often cannot compose more
than two or three lines a day. My five poems, L'Aveugle, Mes Souvenirs,
Franconnette, Martha the Innocent, and Les Deux Jumeaux, have cost me
ten years' work, and they only contain in all but 2,400 verses!... I
cannot write poetry by command. I cannot be a prisoner while I compose.
Therefore I decline to enter the lists with you.

"The courser who drags his chariot with difficulty, albeit he may
arrive at the goal, cannot contend with the fiery locomotive of the
iron railway. The art which produces verses one by one, depends upon
inspiration, not upon manufacture. Therefore my muse declares itself
vanquished in advance; and I authorise you to publish my refusal of your
challenge."

In a postscript, Jasmin added: "Now that you have made the acquaintance
of my Muse, I will, in a few words, introduce you to the man. I love
glory, but the success of others never troubles my sleep at night!"

"When one finds," says Sainte-Beuve, "this theory of work pushed to such
a degree by Jasmin, with whom the spark of inspiration seems always so
prompt and natural, what a sad return we have of the poetical wealth
dissipated by the poets of our day." Sainte-Beuve summed up his praise
of the Gascon poet by insisting that he was invariably sober in his
tone.

"I have learned," said Jasmin of himself, "that in moments of heat
and emotion we may be eloquent or laconic, alike in speech and
action--unconscious poets, in fact; but I have also learned that it is
possible for a poet to become all this voluntarily by dint of patient
toil and conscientious labour!"

Jasmin was not the man to rest upon his laurels. Shortly after his visit
to Paris in 1842, he began to compose his Martha the Innocent, which
we have already briefly described. Two years later he composed Les Deux
Freres Jumeaux--a story of paternal and motherly affection. This was
followed by his Ma Bigno ('My Vineyard'), and La Semaine d'un Fils ('The
Week's Work of a Son'), which a foot-note tells us is historical, the
event having recently occurred in the neighbourhood of Agen.

A short description may be given of this affecting story. The poem is
divided into three parts. In the first, a young boy and his sister, Abel
and Jeanne, are described as kneeling before a cross in the moonlight,
praying to