For the gift that he brought to his people, his grand old father of whom he draws such a delightful portrait in his Memoirs, must be accorded some of the thanks. As in the case of Ruskin and of Browning, a parent who had no connection with literature himself fostered the early studies of the son and left him to follow his bent, while relieving him of the necessities which often smother talent, though never perhaps genius. But then Mistral's father was himself an inspiration to the work his son set himself to do when he returned to the large liberty of his home.
"The Judge's farm was at this time a true home of pure poetry, biblical and idyllic. Did it not live and sing around me, this poem of Provence with its blue depths framed by the Alpilles? One had only to go out to be dazzled by it. Did I not see Mireille passing, not only in my young dreams, but even in person, sometimes in one of those pretty young girls of Maillane, who came to pick mulberry leaves for their silkworms, sometimes in the grace of those who came and went with bare throats and white coifs among the corn and the hay, in the olive-gardens and among the vines?
"Did not the actors in my drama, the labourers, harvesters, herdsmen and shepherds, come and go before my eyes from dawn till dusk? Could you have a finer old man, more patriarchal, more worthy to be the prototype of my Master Ramon, than old François Mistral, whom no one, not even my mother, ever called anything but the Master? My poor father—sometimes when the work was pressing and he wanted help, either to get in the hay or to draw up the water from the well, he would call out: 'Where is Frédéric?' Although at that moment I might be stretched under a willow idly pursuing some fugitive rhyme, my dear mother would reply: 'He is writing.' And immediately the rough voice of the good man would soften as he said: 'Don't disturb him.' For to him, who had never read anything in his youth but the Bible and Don Quixote, writing was almost a holy office."
As a young man Mistral's father had been requisitioned to carry corn to Paris during the Reign of Terror, and was struck with horror at the execution of the king.[12]
"He was profoundly religious. Every evening, summer as well as winter, kneeling at his chair, head uncovered, hands to his forehead, with his hair in a queue tied by a silk ribbon, he would pray for us aloud; and when the evenings lengthened in the autumn he would read the Gospels to his children and his servants....
"Although he would pick up a fagot on the road and carry it home; although he would content himself for his ordinary fare with vegetables and brown bread; although, in the midst of plenty, he was always abstemious, and would mix water with his wine, yet his table was always open, as well as his hand and his purse, to any poor wayfarer. Then, if there was talk of any one, he would ask first: 'Is he a good worker?' and if the answer was, yes, he would say: 'Ah, he's a good man; I'm his friend.'"[13]
This charming book of Mistral's and his poems, give more of flavour of Provence than anything I have read, and the link between our times and his was not even snapped by his death on the day I walked through the country that he more particularly wrote of.
He was never for long away from Provence during the eighty-four years of life, but was much lionized when he did venture as far as Paris. I very much wish that I had seen him, for his personality counted for a great deal in the movement he spent his life in fostering, and he was the last survivor of the original Félibres. It now remains to be seen whether the revival will continue of itself. I have heard it compared with other national revivals, fostered by intellectuals, but taking no great hold of the people, and prophecies of its decay. But I think it has life in it. Mistral would certainly not have called himself an intellectual, and he never behaved like one. He was one of the people himself, and they are fortunate to have found such an interpreter.