The effectiveness, the charm, and the beauty of this verse, for those who understand and feel the language, cannot be denied; and if this poetic literature did not meet a want, it could not exist and grow as it does.  The fact that the prose literature is so slight, so scanty, is highly significant.  The poetry that goes straight to the heart, that speaks to the inner feeling, that calls forth a response, must be composed in the home speech.  It is exceedingly unlikely that a prose literature of any importance will ever grow up in Provence.  No great historians or dramatists, and few novelists, will ever write in this dialect.  The people of Provence will acquire their knowledge and their general higher culture in French literature.  But they will doubtless enjoy that poetry best which sings to them of themselves in the speech of their firesides.  Mistral has endowed them with a verse language that has high artistic possibilities, some of which he has realized most completely.  The music of his verse is the music that expresses the nature of his people.  It is the music of the gai savoir.  Brightness, merriment, movement, quick and sudden emotion,—­not often deep or sustained,—­exuberance and enthusiasm, love of light and life, are predominant; and the verse, absolutely free from strong and heavy combinations of consonants, ripples and glistens with its pretty terminations, full of color, full of vivacity, full of the sunny south.

[Footnote 6: 

    In the castle at Tarascon there is a queen, there is a fairy,
                In the castle of Tarascon
                There is a fairy in hiding.

    The one who shall open the prison wherein she is confined,
                The one who shall open for her,
                Perhaps she will love him.
]

[Footnote 7:  The ship comes from Majorca with a cargo of oranges:  the mainmast of the ship has been crowned with green garlands:  safely the ship arrives from Majorca.]

[Footnote 8:  There blows, in this age, a proud wind, which would make a mere hash of all herbs:  we, the good Provencals, defend the old home over which our swallows hover.]

[Footnote 9:  The bishop of Avignon, Monseigneur Grimoard, hath built a tower at Barbentane, which excites the rage of the sea wind and the northern blast, and strips the Spirit of Evil of his power.  Solid upon the rock, strong, square, freed of demons, it lifts its fierce brow sunward; likewise upon the windows, in case the devil might wish to enter thereby, Monseigneur Grimoard has had his mitre carved.]

[Footnote 10:  John of Gonfaron, captured by corsairs in the Janissaries, served seven years.  Among the Turks a man must use his skin to chains and rust.]

[Footnote 11:  Prisoner of the Saracens, accoutred like a gypsy, with a crimson turban, dried by the white sun, turning the creaking water-wheel, Blac prayed thus.]

[Footnote 12:  A son of Maillane, if I had come in the days of Queen Joanna when she was in her springtime and a sovereign such as they were in those days, with no other diplomacy than her bright glance, in love with her, I should have found, lucky I, so fine a song that the fair Joanna would have given me a mantle to appear in the castles.]