DISCOVERY 



bedding — a series of la\-ers sloping at a certain angle 

 is cut off by another set sloping in a different direction. 

 This frequent variation in the lie of the thin beds is 

 evidence of the deposition of sandy sediment in water 

 with eddying and shifting currents. Dark-brown 

 dykes cut across the sands, and sometimes intersecting 

 dykes project like pieces of a huge network. An even 

 more impressive example of intrusions of igneous rock 

 is afforded by vertical walls of basalt which stretch 

 across the valley. These magnificent dykes do not 

 form continuous curtain walls from one side of the 

 valley to the other, but the rocks are twice or thrice 

 stepped on each side : the light-brown wall of basalt 

 towers against the sky at least lOO feet above the 

 upper level of the slope of the ravine. Its jagged 

 and weathered ledge projects horizontally for some 

 distance towards the middle of the valley and is then 

 cut vertically down into a deep step, and this is 

 repeated two or three times. At the foot of the valley 

 the dyke crosses the stream as a resistant barrier 

 where the water falls in a cascade. The light-yellow 

 colour of the sandstones and the darker tones of the 

 basalts are relieved by clumps of bright yellow Dande- 

 lions and Arnicas, purple Willowherbs, and clusters of 

 the tall russet-brown Oxyria, a plant allied to the 

 common Dock. 



A Peasant Poetess 

 of Normandy 



By George Frederic Lees 



OxE might search for a long time in the annals of 

 literature before finding a parallel to the case of the 

 Normandy poetess, Rose Hard, with whose shade and 

 amidst whose memories, in orchards laden with 

 apple-blossom, I spent a happy vacation some months 

 ago. For this remarkable woman was of peasant 

 origiii, at any rate on her mother's side, and yet she 

 showed, in one springing from the soil and without 

 any early education, a delicacy of feeling and facultv 

 of poetic expression which are remarkable. 



Who that pere inconnu inscribed with the entry 

 of her birth (in 1828) in the registers of Bellon, 

 a humble little village in the Department of the Orne, 

 was wUl never be known, but it is not unreasonable 

 to suppose that he was a man of somewhat higher 

 position and education than her mother. Rose was 

 neglected and uncared for from the very beginning 

 of her life, but was by no means an unhapp}' chUd, 

 since in after-years she always spoke with affection, 

 both in her poems and in private conversations, of the 



little cottage covered with Bengal roses, around which 

 she spent her days in perfect freedom. Chiefly on 

 account of her mother's indifference to her welfare, 

 but also because of poverty, schooling in France in 

 those days being exceedingly dear, she received not 

 even the rudiments of education. 



It was not until she had reached the age of thirteen 

 that she was taught her letters. At that time she was 

 working a hand-loom in a noisome cellar at Vimoutiers, 

 weaving being thought more suited to her delicate 

 constitution than the rough work of the fields, to 

 which children of her class were generally put. Two 

 or three friends in the same humble station of life as 

 herself took pity on her and assisted her to the best 

 of their ability. Another friend a little later gave her 

 lessons in writing and spelhng in the evenings, when 

 hand and eye were weary with the day's work. Rose 

 showed invincible courage in learning, and her active 

 bram enabled her quickly to make up for lost time. 

 Once having learnt how to read, she read ever\'thmg 

 that came within her reach with the utmost avidit}'. 

 There was one book in particular (almost the first, 

 if not actually the first, notable work which fell into 

 her hands) which had a special charm for her, and 

 exercised a powerful influence on her rapidly growing 

 mind — a much-dilapidated copy of the Aventurcs de 

 Teleniaqm, fils d'Ulysee, which one day she found in 

 the attic of the house where she was employed, ^^'eary 

 with fatigue, and overcome with sadness at her hard 

 lot, the sensitive girl had fled there from her damp 

 cellar, little expecting to meet with such a friend. 

 This graceful prose poem, produced by Fenelon in 

 1699, was for quite a century and a half the most 

 read and appreciated book in France. Lamartine, 

 whose melancholy nature had much in common with 

 that of Rose Harel, bears witness in the preface to 

 his Premieres Meditations (1820) to the benefit received 

 when a child from reading Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered 

 and Fenelon's Telemaque, which he found on a dusty 

 shelf in the drawing-room of his father's country 

 house. Its gods and goddesses, nymphs and satyrs, 

 shepherds playing on flutes under the shade of young 

 elms or bj- the side of clear fountains, were people 

 of a new world to Rose Harel — a new and yet, at the 

 same time, an old, familiar world which she often felt 

 she had known since earliest childhood. Passages on 

 nature touched her strangely. There were, indeed, 

 man}- things described in Telemaque which she had 

 seen with her own eyes in her native Normandy : 

 lands covered with a golden harvest of fruit mider 

 the heavy weight of which labourers bowed their 

 shoulders, smiling valleys and fields, shady groves 

 gemmed with flowers and ringing with the song of 

 birds, and dark, mysterious forests full of strange 

 sounds and fragrant odours. And it was largely in 



