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V
SPRING IN AUTUMN
Away and away across the tawny plain of tussock, absolutely flat, the white road runs between its two converging hedgerows, absolutely straight. To right and left the vast, sea-like level, interrupted only at wide intervals by little islets of dark, pointed trees, which hide the homesteads they surround, spreads serenely into space; behind, the empty stretch of it engulfs even the road, and rounds out upon nothing save the open, airy, and deeply coloured distance which, all the world over, proclaims the neighbourhood of that further void—the real sea. But, right ahead, monotony and naked space come all of a sudden to a full stop, and the plain and the road run together straight to glory; for there, up from the ended flat into the endless heavens, sweeps and springs, soars and stands, the long, lofty, pinnacled rampart of the Alps—snow-peaks flinging a dazzling fringe of silver along the fresh blue of the sky, bases of purple and ravines of indigo showing deeper and darker yet in the radiance of this bright spring air.
Yes, it is Spring! From the wide leagues of air
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