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ROMANTIC CITIES OF PROVENCE
ROMANTIC CITIES OFPROVENCE
BY
MONA CAIRD
ILLUSTRATED FROM SKETCHES BY
JOSEPH PENNELL AND EDWARD M. SYNGE
NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN
TO
MARGUERITE HAMILTON SYNGE
[All rights reserved.]
Preface
7This volume can hardly be said to have been written: it cameabout. The little tour in the South of France which is responsiblefor its existence, happened some years ago, and was undertaken forvarious reasons, health and rest among others, and the very lastidea which served as a motive for the journey was that of writingabout the country whose history is so voluminous and so incalculablyancient. Nobody but a historian and a scholar alreadydeeply versed in the subject could dream of attempting to treat itin any serious or complete fashion. But this fact did not preventthe country from instantly making a profound and singular impressionupon a mind entirely unprepared by special study or knowledgeto be thus stirred. The vividness of the impression, therefore,was not to be accounted for by associations of facts and scenes alreadyformed in the imagination. True, many an incident of history andromance now found its scene and background, but before thesecorresponding parts of the puzzle had been fitted together the potentcharm had penetrated, giving that strange, baffling sense of home-comingwhich certain lands and places have for certain minds,remaining for ever mysterious, yet for ever familiar as some hauntof early childhood.
An experience of that sort will not, as a rule, allow itself to be setaside. It works and troubles and urges, until, sooner or later, someform of transmutation must take place, some condensing into formof the formless, some passing of impulse into expression, be it whatit may.
And thus the first stray notes and sketches were made withoutultimate intention. But the charm imposed itself, and the notesgrew and grew. Then a more definite curiosity awoke and gradually8the scene widened: history and imagination took sisterly handsand whispered suggestions, explanations of the