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HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 



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to a Protestant family, and after passing through 

 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 

 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 

 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 falling 

 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. Tbere I 

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



* Alluding to a popular superstition, which Beranger has made the 

 subject of a fine lyric : 



" What means tho fall of yonder star, 



Which falls, falls, and fades away? 



My son, whene'er a mortal dies, 



Earthward his star drops instantly." Translator. 



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