We know the
differences in detail, but we have not that broad glance and grasp
which would enable us to feel them in their fulness. We know that
gentians grow on the Alps, and olives on the Apennines; but we do not
enough conceive for ourselves that variegated mosaic of the world's
surface which a bird sees in its migration, that difference between the
district of the gentian and of the olive which the stork and the
swallow see far off, as they lean upon the sirocco wind. Let us, for a
moment, try to raise ourselves even above the level of their flight,
and imagine the Mediterranean lying beneath us like an irregular lake,
and all its ancient promontories sleeping in the sun: here and there an
angry spot of thunder, a grey stain of storm, moving upon the burning
field; and here and there a fixed wreath of white volcano smoke,
surrounded by its circle of ashes; but for the most part a great
peacefulness of light, Syria and Greece, Italy and Spain, laid like
pieces of a golden pavement into the sea-blue, chased, as we stoop
nearer to them, with bossy beaten work of mountain chains, and glowing
softly with terraced gardens, and flowers heavy with frankincense,
mixed among masses of laurel, and orange, and plumy palm, that abate
with their grey-green shadows the burning of the marble rocks, and of
the ledges of porphyry sloping under lucent sand.
Pages:
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237