Morlaix awoke to a new day. The sunshine was pouring upon it from a
cloudless sky--a somewhat rare vision in Brittany, where the skies are
more often grey, rain frequently falls, and the land is overshadowed by
mist.

[Illustration: GATEWAY, DINAN.]

So far the climate of Brittany resembles very much that of England: and
many other points of comparison exist between Greater Britain and Lesser
Brittany besides its similarity of name. For even its name it derives
from us; from the fact that in the fifth and sixth centuries the Saxons,
as they choose to call them, went over in great numbers and settled
there. No wonder, then, that the Bretons possess many of our
characteristics, even in exaggeration, for they are direct descendants
of the ancient Britons.

They have, for instance, all the gravity of the English temperament, to
which is added a gloom or sombreness of disposition that is born of
repression and poverty and a long struggle with the ways and means of
existence; to which may yet farther be added the influence of climate.
Hope and ambition, the two great levers of the world, with them are not
largely developed; there has been no opportunity for their growth.
Ambitions cannot exist without an aim, nor hope without an object. Just
as in certain dark caves of the world, where daylight never penetrates,
the fish found there have no eyes, because, from long disuse of the
organ, it has gradually lessened and died out; so hope and ambition
amongst the moral faculties must equally disappear without an object in
life.