THE NUPTIAL FLIGHT 179 



village, and the sea between the trees — all these are raised 

 or degraded before they enter within us, are adorned or 

 despoiled, in accordance with the little signal this choice of 

 ours makes to them. We must learn to select from among 

 these semblances of truth. I have spent my own life in 

 eager search for the smaller truths, the physical causes ; and 

 now, at the end of my days, I begin to cherish, not what 

 would lead me from these, but what would precede them, 

 and, above all, what would somewhat surpass them." 



We had attained the summit of a plateau in the Pays 

 de Caux, in Normandy, as trim as an English park, but 

 natural and limitless. It is one of the rare spots on the 

 globe where Nature reveals herself to us unfailingly whole- 

 some and green. A little farther to the north the country 

 is threatened with barrenness ; a little farther to the south 

 it is fatigued and scorched by the sun. At the end of a 

 plain that ran down to the edge of the sea, some peasants 

 were erecting a stack of corn. " Look," he said, " seen from 

 here, they are beautiful. They are constructing that simple 

 and yet so important thing, which is above all else the 

 happy and almost unvarying monument of human life taking 

 root — a stack of corn. The distance, the air of the evening, 

 weave their joyous cries into a kind of song without words, 

 which replies to the noble song of the leaves as they whisper 

 over our heads. Above them the sky is magnificent ; and 

 one almost might fancy that beneficent spirits, waving fiery 

 palm-trees, had swept all the light towards the stack, to 

 give the workers more time. And the track of the palms 

 still remains in the sky. See the humble church by their 

 side, overlooking and watching them, in the midst of the 



