THE STUDY OF NATURE. 



c 





remote summits of the Pyrenees, which were visible 

 in clear weather. The young elm-trees of our own 

 France, mingled with American acacias, rose-laurels, and 

 young cypresses, interrupted its full flood of light, and 

 transmitted to us a softened radiance. 



" On our right, a thicket of oaks, inclosed with a 

 dense hedge, sheltered us from the north, and from the 

 keen wind of the Cantal. Far away, on the left, swept 

 the green meadows and the corn-fields. Through the 

 broom, and in the shade of some tall trees, flowed a 

 brooklet a thin thread of limpid water, defined against 

 the evening horizon by a small belt of haze which ran 

 along its border. 



" The climate is intermediate. In the valley, which 

 is that of the Tarn, and which shares the mildness of 

 the Garonne and the severity of Auvergne, we find 

 none of those southern products common everywhere 

 around Bordeaux. But the mulberry, and the melting 

 perfumed peach, the juicy grape, the sugared fig, and 

 the melon, growing in the open air, testify that we are 

 in the south. Fruits superabounded with us ; one 

 portion of the estate was an immense vineyard. 



" Memory vividly recalls to me all the charms of 

 this locality, and its varied character. It was never 

 otherwise than grave and melancholy in itself, and it 

 impressed these feelings on all about it. My father, 

 though lively and agreeable, was a man already aged, 

 and of uncertain health. My mother, young, beautiful, 

 austere, had the queenly bearing of the North American, 

 with a prudence and an active economy very rare in 

 Creoles. The estate which we occupied formerly belonged 





