22 



HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 



to a Protestant family, and after passing througli 

 many hands before it fell into ours, still retained the 

 graves of its ancient owners — simple hillocks of turf, 

 where the proscribed had enshrined their dead under a 

 thick grove of oaks. I need hardly say, that these trees 

 £ifc and these tombs, consecrated by their very oblivion, 

 (%|"' were religiously respected by my father. Each grave 

 ^'■' was marked out by rose-bushes, which his own hands 

 \/Wk had planted. These sweet odours, these bright blossoms, 

 concealed the gloom of death, while suffering, neverthe- 

 \(^'^ less, something of its melancholy to remain. Thither, 

 '^ ^ then, we were drawn, and as it were in spite of our- 

 selves, at evening time. Overcome by emotion, we 

 often mourned over the departed ; and, at each falKng 

 star, exclaimed, ' It is a soul which passes !' * 



" In this living country-side, among alternate joys 

 and pains, I lived for ten years — from four to fourteen. 

 I had no comrades. My sister, five years older than 

 myself, was the companion of my mother when I was 

 still but a little girl. My brothers, numerous enough 

 to play among themselves without my help, often left 

 me all alone in the hours of recreation. If they ran off 

 to the fields, I could only follow them with my eyes. 

 I passed, then, many solitary hours in wandering near 

 the house, and in the long garden alleys. There I 

 acquired, in spite of a natural vivacity, habits of con- 



i'!^ 



* Alluding to a popular superstition, wiiich Beranger has made tiio 

 subject of a fine lyric : — 



" What means tho I'aJl of yonder star, - 



Which falls, falls, and fades away? 



My son, whene'er a mortal dies, 



Earthward his star drops instanUy." — Translator. 



