Notes of a Journey Through France and Italy

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Hunt and Clarke, 1826 - 416 pages

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Page 305 - But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread: Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace, and nothing said: But that two-handed engine at the door Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.
Page 115 - Flavia the least and slightest toy Can with resistless art employ. This Fan in meaner hands would prove An engine of small force in love ; But she, with such an air and mien, Not to be told or safely seen, Directs its wanton motions so, That it wounds more than Cupid's bow ; Gives coolness to the matchless dame, To every other breast a flame.
Page 349 - Pillared with whitest marble, whence Palace on lofty palace sprung; And over all rich gardens hung, Where, amongst silver waterfalls, Cedars and spice-trees and green bowers, And sweet winds playing with all the flowers Of Persia and of...
Page 131 - Paris is a vast pile of tall and dirty alleys, of slaughter-houses and barbers' shops — an immense suburb huddled together within the walls so close, that you cannot see the loftiness of the buildings for the narrowness of the streets, and where all that is fit to live in, and best worth looking at, is turned out upon the quays, the boulevards, and their immediate vicinity.
Page 195 - ... a corner of the road we entered upon a narrow defile or rocky ledge, overlooking a steep valley under our feet, with a headlong turbid stream dashing down it, and spreading itself out into a more tranquil river below, a dark wood of innumerable pine-trees, covering the side of the valley opposite, with broken crags, morasses, and green plots of cultivated ground, orchards, and quiet homesteads, on which the sun glanced its farewell rays through the openings of the mountains. On our left, a precipice...
Page 231 - Ravenna Fantica, Firense la bella, Roma la santa. Some of these I have seen, and others not ; and those that I have not seen seem to me the finest. Does not this list convey as good an idea of these places as one can well have ? It selects some one distinct feature of them, and that the best. Words may be said, after all, to be the finest things in the world. Things themselves are but a lower species of words, exhibiting the grossnesses and details of matter.
Page 3 - The mind loves to hover on that which is endless, and for ever the same. People wonder at a steam-boat, the invention of man, managed by man, that makes its liquid path like an iron railway through the sea — I wonder at the sea itself, that vast Leviathan, rolled round the earth, smiling in its sleep, waked into fury, fathomless, boundless, a huge world...
Page 385 - Days, weeks, months, and even years might have passed on much in the same manner, with 'but the season's difference.' We breakfasted at the same hour, and the tea-kettle was always boiling (an excellent thing in housewifery) — a lounge in the orchard for an hour or two, and twice a week we could see the steam-boat creeping like a spider over the surface of the lake ; a volume of the Scotch novels (to be had in every library on the Continent, in English, French, German, or Italian, as the reader...
Page 391 - The landscape painter has only to go there, and make a picture of it. It is already framed by nature to his hand ! I mention this the more, because that kind of grouping of objects which is essential to the picturesque, is not always to be found in the most sublime or even beautiful scenes. Nature (so to speak) uses a larger...
Page 3 - ... of man, managed by man, that makes its liquid path like an iron railway through the sea — I wonder at the sea itself, that vast Leviathan, rolled round the earth, smiling in its sleep, waked into fury, fathomless, boundless, a huge world of water-drops^-Whence is it, whither goes it, is it of eternity or of nothing ? Strange, ponderous riddle, that we can neither penetrate nor grasp in our comprehension...

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