TEXT B I am ashamed to begin with
saying that Touraine is the garden of France; that remark has long ago lost its
bloom. The town of Tours, however, has something sweet and bright, which
suggests that it is surrounded by a land of fruits. It is a very agreeable
little city; few towns of its size are more ripe, more complete, or, I should
suppose, in better humor with themselves and less disposed to envy the
responsibilities of bigger places. It is truly the capital of its smiling
province; a region of easy abundance, of good living, of genial, comfortable,
optimistic, rather indolent opinions. Balzac says in one of his tales that the
real Tourangeau will not make an effort, or displace himself even, to go in
search of a pleasure; and it is not difficult to understand the sources of this
amiable cynicism. He must have a vague conviction that he can only lose by
almost any change. Fortune has been kind to him: he lives in a temperate,
reasonable, sociable climate, on the banks, of a river which, it is true,
sometimes floods the country around it, but of which the ravages appear to be so
easily repaired that its aggressions may perhaps be regarded (in a region where
so many good things are certain) merely as an occasion for healthy suspense. He
is surrounded by fine old traditions, religious, social, architectural,
culinary; and he may have the satisfaction of feeling that he is French to the
core. No part of his admirable country is more characteristically national.
Normandy is Normandy, Burgundy is Burgundy, Provence is Provence; but Touraine
is essentially France. It is the land of Rabelais, of Descartes, of Balzac, of
good books and good company, as well as good dinners and good houses. George
Sand has somewhere a charming passage about the mildness, the convenient
quality, of the physical conditions of central France, "son climat ouple et
chaud, ses pluies abondantes et courtes." In the autumn of 1882 the rains
perhaps were less short than abundant; but when the days were fine it was
impossible that anything in the way of weather could be more charming. The
vineyards and orchards looked rich in the fresh, gay light; cultivation was
everywhere, but everywhere it seemed to be easy. There was no visible poverty;
thrift and success presented themselves as matters of good taste. The white caps
of the women glittered in the sunshire, and their well-made sabots clicked
cheerfully on the hard, clean roads. Touraine is a land of old chateaux, a
gallery of architectural specimens and of large hereditary properties. The
peasantry have less of the luxury of ownership than in most other parts of
France; though they have enough of it to give them quite their share of that
shrewdly conservative look which, in the little, chaffering, place of the
market-town, the stranger observes so often in the wrinkled brown masks that
surmount the agricultural blouse. This is, moreover, the heart of the old French
monarchy; and as that monarchy was splendid and picturesque, a reflection of the
splendor still glitters in the current of the Loire. Some of the most striking
events of French history have occurred on the banks of that river, and the soil
it waters bloomed for a while with the flowering of the Renaissance. The Loire
gives a great "style" to a landscape of which the features are not, as the
phrase is, prominent, and carries the eye to distances even more poetic than the
green horizons of Touraine. It is a very fitful stream, and is sometimes
observed to run thin and expose all the crudities of its channel, a great defect
certainly in a river which is so much depended upon to give an air to the places
it waters. But I speak of it as I saw it last; full, tranquil, powerful, bending
in large slow curves, and sending back half the light of the sky. Nothing can be
finer than the view of its course which you get from the battlements and
terraces of Amboise. As I looked down on it from that elevation one lovely
Sunday morning, through a mild glitter of autumn sunshine, it seemed the very
model of a generous, beneficent stream. The most charming part of Tours is
naturally the shaded quay that overlooks it, and looks across too at the
friendly faubourg of Saint Symphorien and at the terraced heights which rise
above this. Indeed, throughout Touraine, it is half the charm of the Loire that
you can travel beside it. The great dike which protects it, or, protects the
country from it, from Blois to Angers, is an admirable road; and on the other
side, as well, the highway constantly keeps it company. A wide river, as you
follow a wide road, is excellent company; it heightens and shortens the way. Which of the following word is not proper for Touraine