Page:A Leaf in the Storm.djvu/223

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216
A PROVENCE ROSE.

place and peopled square; the quaint gray piles in old historic ways; the stones, from every one of which some voice from the imperishable Past cries out; the green and silent woods, the little leafy villages, the winding waters gardengirt; the forest heights, with the city gleaming and golden in the plain;—all these are his.

With these,-and youth,—who shall dare say the painter is not rich—ay, though his board be empty and his cup be dry?

I had not loved Paris,—I, a little imprisoned rose, caged in a clay pot, and seeing nothing but the sky-line of the roofs. But I grew to love it, hearing from René and from Lili of all the poetry and gladness that Paris made possible in their young and burdened lives, and which could have been thus possible in no other city of the earth.

City of Pleasure you have called her, and with truth; but why not also City of the Poor? For what city, like herself, has remembered the poor in her pleasure, and given to them, no less than to the richest, the treasure of her laughing sunlight, of her melodious music, of her gracious hues, of her million flowers, of her shady leaves, of her divine ideals?

Oh, world! when you let Paris die, you let your last youth die with her! Your rich will mourn