Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/278

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breath respires soft life, and the fresh air deeply impresses into the human mind the symbol of revived nature.

A beautiful landscape laid before us, bordered by a caste, surrounded with a spacious park and garden, at the foot of a mountain. The rosy clouds of the morning were still mixed with the azure ground of the spreading horizon, which exhibited on its brink a group of rocks and scattered cottages. The castle was very near, and the sun reflected his golden beans from its glimmering windows.

We had now got to the park of the castle, when one of the servants, I don't know whether it was Alfonso or some other, began to relate the history of lord of the manor before us, which-he said he had learned at the inn where we put up the preceding night. He described him as the owner of the castle, and as a man whose misfortunes had made him retire from the bustling scenes of the world, to pass his days in misanthropic apathy in this lonely retreat, with Adela de Giraumont, his daughter, a prodigy of beauty, and the admi-