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344 Than the herd. O folly! O sin! O pride! Pity me all those that will not deride! Behold like a brute I eat and I range, And the brute itself with me would not change; For it has nurslings to feed in its den, And I've none at my hearth, the most lonely of men.'

To a Bereaved Mother. Reboul was a baker or boulanger at Nîmes, and is the author of 'Poésies' (1836), 'Le Dernier Jour' (1840), 'Les Traditionnelles' (1857), and a tragedy, 'Le Martyre de Vivia.' Lamartine honoured him with a notice, and, in reference to Reboul's humble profession, said that Homer was a beggar, Virgil a shepherd, and Moses a child abandoned on the waters. Reboul knew well what to answer:

Alexandre Dumas also honoured Reboul in his 'Impressions de Voyage' with a flattering notice, which is so interesting that we must desire the reader to hunt out the book and read it. In the morning Dumas found the poet in his shop selling his loaves—'You come to see the poet and not the baker—is it not so? Now, I am a baker from five o'clock in the morning to four in the evening. From four o'clock to midnight I am a poet. Would you buy nice little loaves? Then stay. I have excellent ones. Would you have verses? Come back at five: I shall supply you with bad ones.' 'I shall come back at five.' At five accordingly Dumas saw the poet in his little garret above a granary heaped up with mountains of wheat of diverse qualities, and learnt from him the secret of his art. 'Are you of a distinguished family?' 'I am the son of a common labourer.' 'Did you receive a good education?' 'None at all.' 'What made you a poet?' 'Misfortune.' 'I looked around me,'—writes Dumas; 'everything appeared so calm, so quiet, so happy in the little chamber, that the word misfortune ought not, I thought, to have found any echo there. "You want an explanation of what I have just said, is it not so?" continued Reboul. "And I do not find it, I confess." "Have you never passed over a tomb unconsciously?" "Ah, yes; and there I have found the grass more green and the flowers more fresh." "Ah! Well, it is just that. I had married a woman whom I loved.—My wife is dead." I gave him my hand. "And now do you understand," he continued, "I felt a great sorrow which I vainly searched to pour out to somebody. Those who had surrounded me up to that time were men of my class, gentle, pitiful, but common souls. Instead of telling me, 'Weep, and we shall weep with you,' they tried to console me. My tears, which only asked to flow, went back towards my heart, and inundated it. I sought solitude, and finding no human souls able to understand me, I cried to God alone. These solitary and religious cries took an elevated poetic character, which I had never remarked in my words; my thoughts formulated themselves in an idiom almost unknown to