Golfe de Salonique. Situated on the east coast of Turkey

4. Cette . . . usée : thèse descriptions of Turkish life and customs, so tvell known % so hackneyed, Loti has known how to put new life into them.

Page 106. — 1 . Une . . . avatars : a soûl which can easily incarnate itself into any kind ofbeings. " Dans la religion hindoue, on appelle avatar

chacune des incarnations de la divinité." Théophile Gautier gave the name of Avatar to one of his short novels, in which he describes the phenomenon of one man's soûl passing into another man.

Page 107. — i. Notre intimité : our smallness, compared to the greatness of the universe.

2. Des . . . non-vie: i.e. it looks to kim as a dead island, without any life on it or in it.

Page 108. — i. Honoré de Balzac (1799-18 50). One of the most remarkable modem novelists and the father of the Realistic school. (le gave the name of La Comédie Humaine to the collection of his novels, which were divided into three parts: /, Études de Mœurs; 2, Études philosophiques ; j, Études analytiques. His best-known works are : La Peau de Chagrin, Louis Lambert, La Cousine Bette, César Birotteau, Le Père Goriot, La Recherche de V Absolu, Eugénie Grandet, etc. His style U unequal, and imagination often takes the place of true observation.