Her Royal Lover: A Novel — page 143: what you’re looking at

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HER ROYAL LOVER. 135 wind. At the bottom, the little River Saave, with its clear and tranquil water, was meandering quite blue, in the se pasa: atmosphere of this splendid May day. Arrived at the apogee of its course, the day-star was in the height of its splendor; the intense heat of its rays, falling almost perpendicularly, was tempered by a light zephyr, whose gentle breath was driving fleecy clouds in the infinity of space, which, like flakes of cotton, were softly arising from the base of the chain of mountains, and were disap- pearing as if to surrender a passage to these bristling summits, menacing the heavens even. The valley and the sides of the mountains had surrendered to the labor of man; that conquest was his work. What perseverance had he not indeed displayed, in order to succeed in converting this sterile and inhospitable earth into the rich and prosperous country which was spread out under the eyes of the two spectators! The struggle certainly had been great, but great also was the victory; it had been difficult to say which excelled, whether the gigantic and imposing spectacle of this privil- eged spot, or this admirable and abundant vegeta- tion, plucked and conquered by the will and genius of man. Like the squares of a chess-board, vast tracts of cultivated fields were delineated on all sides, whose different colors formed a mixture as picturesque as original. There were enormous patches of colza, whose rich harvest of blossoms imparted their color, yellow as that of a topaz; here, immense fields dis- appeared under the deep violet leaves of the mangel- wurzel, veritable amethysts of the fields; farther still, all was white; it was the abundant harvest of © Eomicbooks.com