Upon the
heights a drama of color was always to be seen, a play of
ever-shifting iridescent hues like those on a pigeon's breast.
Oftentimes at sunrise or at sunset a ray of bright sunlight would
penetrate between two sheer surfaces of lava, that might have been
split apart by a hatchet, to the very depths of that pleasant little
garden, where it would play in the waters of the pool, like a beam of
golden light which gleams through the chinks of a shutter into a room
in Spain, that has been carefully darkened for a siesta. When the sun
rose above the old crater that some antediluvian revolution had filled
with water, its rocky sides took warmer tones, the extinct volcano
glowed again, and its sudden heat quickened the sprouting seeds and
vegetation, gave color to the flowers, and ripened the fruits of this
forgotten corner of the earth.
As Raphael reached it, he noticed several cows grazing in the
pasture-land; and when he had taken a few steps towards the water, he
saw a little house built of granite and roofed with shingle in the
spot where the meadowland was at its widest. The roof of this little
cottage harmonized with everything about it; for it had long been
overgrown with ivy, moss, and flowers of no recent date.
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