I was in the Near East when these little letters of Yves reached me;
they brought me, in their simplicity, the already far-off perfume of the
Breton country.
My memories of Brittany were fading fast. Even now I seemed to see them
as through a mist of dreamland; the reefs I had known so well, the
lights on the coast, Cape Finistère with its great dark rocks; and the
dangerous approaches to Ushant on winter evenings, and the west wind
blowing under a mournful sky, in the fall of December nights. From where
I was now, it all seemed a vision of a sunless country.
And the poor little cottage at Toulven! How small it seemed, lost at the
side of a Breton lane! But it was the region of deep beech woods, of
grey rocks, of lichens and mosses; of old granite chapels and
high-growing grass speckled with red flowers. Here, sand and white
minarets under a vault surpassingly blue, and sunshine, eternal,
enchanting sunshine!