Page:Journey Round my Room by Xiavier de Maistre trans. Henry Attwell.djvu/85

Rh And thou who weepest under the palmtrees, poor negro woman! thou, whom some barbarous fellow has betrayed and deserted, nay, worse, whom he has had the brutality to sell as a vile slave, notwithstanding thy love and devotion, notwithstanding the pledge of affection thou hast borne at thy breast,—I will not pass before thine image without rendering to thee the homage due to thy tenderness and thy sorrows.

Let us pause a moment before the other picture. It is a young shepherdess tending her flock alone on the heights of the Alps. She sits on an old willow trunk, bleached by many winters. Her feet are covered by the broad leaves of a tuft of cacalia, whose lilac blossoms bloom above her head. Lavender, wild thyme, the anemone, centaury, and flowers which are cultivated with care in our hot-houses and gardens, and which grow in all their native