"For now, where is the limit that separates us from joy, young, amorous
as we are, free as birds! Look: Nature burns around us and rolls in the
arms of Summer, and drinks in the devouring breath of her ruddy spouse.
The clear, blue peaks, the hills, pale and soft with the heat, are
thrilled and stir their rounding summits. Behold the sea, glistening and
limpid as glass; in the thirsty rays of the great sun, she allows
herself to be seen clear to the bottom, to be caressed by the Rhone and
the Var."

These are the words of Calendau when, seeking his 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