“These reasonings may culminate in a state of mind such as we see extolled in Buddhism, a colorless state, joyless and painless, across which the fleeting splendors of thought pass like stars.  Well, the man of the south cares naught for that sort of paradise.  The vein of real sensation is freely, perpetually open, open to life.  The side that pertains to abstraction, to logic, is lost in mist.”

We have referred to the power of story-telling among the Provencals and their responsiveness as listeners.  Daudet mentions the contrast to be observed between an audience of southerners and the stolid, self-contained attitude of a crowd in the north.

The evil side of the southern temperament, the faults that accompany these traits, are plainly stated by the great novelist.  Enthusiasm turns to hypocrisy, or brag; the love of what glitters, to a passion for luxury at any cost; sociability, the desire to please, become weakness and fulsome flattery.  The orator beats his breast, his voice is hoarse, choked with emotion, his tears flow conveniently, he appeals to patriotism and the noblest sentiments.  There is a legend, according to Daudet, which says that when Mirabeau cried out, “We will not leave unless driven out at the point of the bayonet,” a voice off at one side corrected the utterance, murmuring sarcastically, “And if the bayonets come, we make tracks!”

The southerner, when he converses, is roused to animation readily.  His eye flashes, his words are uttered with strong intonations, the impressiveness of a quiet, earnest, self-contained manner is unknown to him.

Daudet is a novelist and a humorist.  Mistral is a poet; hence, although he professes to aim at a full expression of the “soul of his Provence,” there are many aspects of the Provencal nature that he has not touched upon.  He has omitted all the traits that lend themselves to satirical treatment, and, although he is in many ways a remarkable realist, he has very little dramatic power, and seems to lack the gift of searching analysis of individual character.  It is hardly fair to reckon it as a shortcoming in the poet and apostle of Provence that he presents only what is most beautiful in the life about him.  The novelist offers us a faithful and vivid image of the men of his own day.  The poet glorifies the past, clings to tradition, and exhorts his countrymen to return to it.

Essentially and above all else a conservative, Mistral has the gravest doubts about so-called modern progress.  Undoubtedly honest in desiring the well-being of his fellow Provencals, he believes that this can be preserved or attained only by a following of tradition.  There must be no breaking with the past.  Daudet, late in life, adhered to this doctrine.  His son quotes him as saying:—­