It is difficult to characterize the curious combination of levity and seriousness that runs through this tale.  There is no illusion of reality anywhere; there is no agony of soul in Baron Pon’s confession; Nerto’s terror when she learns that she is the property of the Devil is far from impressive, because she says too much, with expressions that are too pretty, perhaps because the rippling octosyllabic verse, in Provencal at least, cannot be serious; it is hardly worth while to mention the objection that if the Devil can be worsted at any time merely by inverting a sword, especially when the sword is that of an assassin and a rake, whose repentance is scarcely touched upon and is by no means disinterested, it is clear that the Demon has wasted his time at a very foolish game; a religious mind might feel a deeper sort of reverence for the Archangels than is evinced here.  Yet it cannot be said that the poem parodies things sacred and sublime, and it appears to be utterly without philosophical intention.  Mistral really has to a surprising degree the naivete of writers of former centuries, and as regards the tale itself and its general treatment it could almost have been written by a contemporary of the events it relates.

IV.  LOU POUEMO DOU ROSE

The Poem of the Rhone, the third of the poems in twelve cantos that Mistral has written, appeared in 1897.  It completes the symmetry of his life work; the former epics extolled the life of the fields, the mountains, and the sea, the last glorifies the beautiful river that brings life to his native soil.  More than either of the other long poems, it is an act of affection for the past, for the Rhone of the poem is the Rhone of his early childhood, before the steam-packets churned its waters, or the railroads poured up their smoke along its banks.  Although the poet has interwoven in it a tale of merest fancy, it is essentially realistic, differing notably in this respect from Calendau.  This realism descends to the merest details, and the poetic quality of the work suffers considerably in many passages.  The poet does not shrink from minute enumeration of cargoes, or technical description of boats, or word-for-word reproduction of the idle talk of boatwomen, or the apparently inexhaustible profanity of the boatmen.  The life on the river is vividly portrayed, and we put down the book with a sense of really having made the journey from Lyons to Beaucaire with the fleet of seven boats of Master Apian.

On opening the volume the reader is struck first of all with the novel versification.  It is blank verse, the line being precisely that of Dante’s Divina Commedia.  Not only is there no rhyme, but assonance is very carefully avoided.  The effect of this unbroken succession of feminine verses is slightly monotonous, though the poet shifts his pauses skilfully.  The rhythm of the lines is marked, the effect upon the ear being quite like that of English