The Christmas Kalends of Provence

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Vièlmur according to the traditional Proven?al rites and ceremonies in his own entirely Proven?al home: an ancient dwelling which stands h

ickler for the preservation of antique forms and ceremonies: sometimes, indeed, pushing his fancies to lengths that fairly would lay him open to the charge of whimsicality, were not even the most extravagant of his crotchets touched and mellowed by his natural goodness of heart. In the earlier stages of our acquaintance I was disposed to regard him as an eccentric; but a wider knowledge of Proven?al matters has convinced me tha

intly archaic tone. The donjon, a prodigiously strong square tower dating from the twelfth century, partly is surrounded by a dwelling in the florid style of two hundred years back-the

uble set of ancient iron-clamped doors. As the few exterior windows of the farm-house are grated heavily, and as from each of the rear corners of the square there projects a crusty tourelle from which a raking fire could be kept up along the wa

abour and farm life. Chickens and ducks wander about it chattering complacently, an aged goat of a melancholy humour stands usually in one corner lost in misanthropic thou

THE

ile as frequently, though less regularly, most of the members of the two households come there too; and there do the humans-notably, I have observed, if they be of different sexes-find it convenient to rest for a while toget

elf in a little doze) the well-water is raised continuously into a long stone trough. Thence the overflow is led away to irrigate the garden of the Chateau: an old-fashioned garden, on a slope declining southward a

ch in the early spring time belt the grey mountains with a broad girdle of delicate pink blossoms; a little lower are terraced olive-orchards, a pale shimmering green the year round-the olive continuously casting and renewing its leaves; and the lowest level, the wide fertile plain, is give

er of Marius is a ticklish subject to touch on with the Vidame: since the fact must be admitted that other antiquaries are not less firm in their convictions, nor less hot in presenting them, that the camp of the Roman general was variously elsewhere-and all of them, I regret to add, disp

t scratching of the soil brings to light flints and potshards which tell of varied human occupancy in very far back times. And the antiquaries still farther are agreed that precisely as these material relics (only a little hidden beneath the present surface of the soil) tell

ey may be aroused into a life that still in part is real. Even now, when the touch-stone is applied-when the thrilling of some nerve of memory or of instinct brings the present into close association with the past-there will flash into view still quick particles of seemingl