It was like none of our conceptions; it was a
spontaneous growth, a masterpiece due to chance.
As Raphael reached the place, the sunlight fell across it from right
to left, bringing out all the colors of its plants and trees; the
yellowish or gray bases of the crags, the different shades of the
green leaves, the masses of flowers, pink, blue, or white, the
climbing plants with their bell-like blossoms, and the shot velvet of
the mosses, the purple-tinted blooms of the heather,--everything was
either brought into relief or made fairer yet by the enchantment of
the light or by the contrasting shadows; and this was the case most of
all with the sheet of water, wherein the house, the trees, the granite
peaks, and the sky were all faithfully reflected. Everything had a
radiance of its own in this delightful picture, from the sparkling
mica-stone to the bleached tuft of grass hidden away in the soft
shadows; the spotted cow with its glossy hide, the delicate
water-plants that hung down over the pool like fringes in a nook where
blue or emerald colored insects were buzzing about, the roots of trees
like a sand-besprinkled shock of hair above grotesque faces in the
flinty rock surface,--all these things made a harmony for the eye.
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