Those were in truth dark times when our fathers were sold like a brutish herd, and sent to Corsica, it might be, or to America. But Pasquale Paoli arose here—in the other hemisphere Washington; and beyond the Rhine, the rights of man became clamorous. The reproach of these old times was wiped away, and with the rest of it, the reproach of Calenzana; for the children of those who lie here in slavish graves fought for wife and child and the independence of their country, fought for European freedom, and vanquished the Corsican despot. The sun is setting; it throws its splendours on the gulf, and the rocky hills of Calenzana are all a-glow. How magical is this southern haze of distance, and how delicate the tones of the colouring! All transition has a profound effect upon the human soul. On the boundary line where the transition is made from Being to non-existence, or from non-existence to Being, lies the fairest and deepest poesy of life. It is not otherwise in history. Its most wonderful phenomena invariably occur on the boundary where two different periods of culture touch, and pass the one into the other; as in Nature, the seasons of the year and the times of the day exhibit the most glorious phenomena when they are merging into one another. I believe it is the same with the history of the individual. Here too, the transitions from one period to another, from one phase of culture to another, are full of enchantment, and more fruitful than all other periods, for it is in them alone that the germs of poetry and productive power are developed. There is a world-forsaken loneliness about Calvi which is almost fabulous. No movement on the still mirror of the gulf—no ship on all those miles of sea—no bird cleaving the air—the black tower rising yonder on the snow-white strand like a dark shape in a dream. But here sits an eagle, a magnificent creature, resting with a grave majesty—now he takes flight, and with mighty strokes of his pinions makes for the hills. He is satiated with blood.—There I have started a fox, the first I have met with in Corsica, where these animals attain an astonishing size, and, like wolves, commit depredations among the sheep. He was sitting much at his ease upon the shore, apparently enjoying the rose-red of the waves, and quite lost in the contemplation of nature, for he was in such a brown study that I got within five paces of him. Suddenly Master Reynard jumped up, and as the strand was narrow I had the pleasure of stopping his way, and making him lose his composure for a minute or two. Hereupon he doubled cunningly, turned the enemy's flank, and ran merrily away into the hills. He is very well off in Corsica, where the beasts make him their king, as there are no wolves.