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Article THE LUCKY INHERITANCE. ← Page 9 of 19 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Lucky Inheritance.
farewell affliction , farewell troubles of the heart , fareAvell sin . " Everybody must be glad to get rid of these drawbacks upon happiness ; but if it had fallen to my lot to wish them good bye in verse , I think I should have tried a livelier strain , if the words would have allowed me . The inhabitants of this part of Brittany may very reasonably
aspire after Paradise , for the country , almost all the way from St . Nazaire to Guerande , is very hideous , —nothing but saltmarshes as far as the eye can reach , with encroachments of seasand . Midway between the two places we stopped at a village called Escoublac . The houses are of modern type ; but this is accounted for by the fact that the place is new , being built a
short distance from the old A'illage , which Avas buried in the sands a few years ago ; even the spire of the church , which used to be a sort of landmark , has disappeared . Thepaludiers , however ( as the dwellers in these marshes are called ) , stick to the locality ; and AA'hat is local appears to stick to them , for they are like moving pillars of saltall dressed in AA'hite and glistening in
, the sun . The Bretons are , generally speaking , obnoxious to the vice of drinking ; but there is some excuse for the people of Escoublac , Avho live , as it were , in a salt-pan all the year round , in a kind of perpetual pickle . But sudden transitions are as common in out-of-doors nature
as m the mood of man , — " to one thing constant never , "—and at the edge of the salt-marshes there rises an oasis in the desert . Tired of the glare of the glittering soil , I Avas sitting with half-closed eyes , listening to the most wonderful story that Jannik had yet told , about a friend of his who Avas changed into a wolf , when the patache jolting heaA'ily into a deep rut made
me open them full Avide , and straight before me , distant about half a league , I beheld the gray Avails of a town crowning an eminence of bright green , and environed by a verdant plain . I fancied it a mirage , but it was really and truly Guerande itself , and no fugitive vision . Fugitive ! Not it . That old toAvn had been standing therejust as it noAv appeared — with a few
, trifling dilapidations—for upwards of six hundred years \ The remainder of the tale of Jannik ' s friend ' s metamorphosis "was unheard by me , and , as far as I know , he remains a Avolf to this hour .
You may see fragments of the architecture of the middle ages , whole streets even , sometimes half a town , in various parts of France : Poitiers , Vitre , Angers , and Avignon , are amongst the most curious in this respect , but none of them come up to Guerande . All the other places have new quarters and suburbs ; Guerande has neither . It is entirely surrounded
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Lucky Inheritance.
farewell affliction , farewell troubles of the heart , fareAvell sin . " Everybody must be glad to get rid of these drawbacks upon happiness ; but if it had fallen to my lot to wish them good bye in verse , I think I should have tried a livelier strain , if the words would have allowed me . The inhabitants of this part of Brittany may very reasonably
aspire after Paradise , for the country , almost all the way from St . Nazaire to Guerande , is very hideous , —nothing but saltmarshes as far as the eye can reach , with encroachments of seasand . Midway between the two places we stopped at a village called Escoublac . The houses are of modern type ; but this is accounted for by the fact that the place is new , being built a
short distance from the old A'illage , which Avas buried in the sands a few years ago ; even the spire of the church , which used to be a sort of landmark , has disappeared . Thepaludiers , however ( as the dwellers in these marshes are called ) , stick to the locality ; and AA'hat is local appears to stick to them , for they are like moving pillars of saltall dressed in AA'hite and glistening in
, the sun . The Bretons are , generally speaking , obnoxious to the vice of drinking ; but there is some excuse for the people of Escoublac , Avho live , as it were , in a salt-pan all the year round , in a kind of perpetual pickle . But sudden transitions are as common in out-of-doors nature
as m the mood of man , — " to one thing constant never , "—and at the edge of the salt-marshes there rises an oasis in the desert . Tired of the glare of the glittering soil , I Avas sitting with half-closed eyes , listening to the most wonderful story that Jannik had yet told , about a friend of his who Avas changed into a wolf , when the patache jolting heaA'ily into a deep rut made
me open them full Avide , and straight before me , distant about half a league , I beheld the gray Avails of a town crowning an eminence of bright green , and environed by a verdant plain . I fancied it a mirage , but it was really and truly Guerande itself , and no fugitive vision . Fugitive ! Not it . That old toAvn had been standing therejust as it noAv appeared — with a few
, trifling dilapidations—for upwards of six hundred years \ The remainder of the tale of Jannik ' s friend ' s metamorphosis "was unheard by me , and , as far as I know , he remains a Avolf to this hour .
You may see fragments of the architecture of the middle ages , whole streets even , sometimes half a town , in various parts of France : Poitiers , Vitre , Angers , and Avignon , are amongst the most curious in this respect , but none of them come up to Guerande . All the other places have new quarters and suburbs ; Guerande has neither . It is entirely surrounded