Page:The Spirit of French Music.djvu/130

 I do not suppose that he learnt much at his village school, and his literary culture must have remained very incomplete and haphazard. But he had that mark of the higher breeds, common-sense and reasoning power. And so what he managed to read and acquire without much method taught him to have a clear outlook on humanity and life. The books which he set to music, except those made for him by the master hand of Boïto, were poor literature. I am struck with the perseverance with which he meditated them, steeped himself in them. He would con them a hundred times. These often wretched lucubrations dealt after all with human matters. Their subjects were the follies and tragedies of love and ambition, the greatness and distress of kings, the destiny of nations. It was just universal history, and a piercing eye could trace its outlines under a clumsy and puerile portrayal. That is why Verdi read his books so many times. He was transforming them. He was transporting these melodramatic trifles on to the plane of seriousness, truth and greatness. And that is why one so often has the impression that his music is saying something great, though the words are poor.

A fine trilogy might be made of these three great Latins, Verdi, Mistral and J. H. Fabre. Three great peasants, each a genius, they grew like oaks in the middle of their village square, and they grew so high that the universe has greeted their burgeoning.