To Xanthe, gazing downward, her father's pine-wood seemed
like a camp full of arched, round tents, and, if she allowed her eyes to
wander farther, she beheld the motionless sea, whose broad surface, on
this pleasant morning, sparkled like polished sapphire, and everywhere
seemed striving to surpass with its own blue the color of the clear sky.
Ever and anon, like a tiny silver cloud floating across the firmament,
white sails glided by.
Pleasant green hills framed this lovely view. On their well-cultivated
slopes appeared here the white, glimmering walls of a temple; yonder
villages, houses, and cottages, like the herds and single sheep that he
half concealed by dense foliage.
Garlands of flowers surround the heads of happy mortals, and here the
house of every wealthy land-owner was inclosed by a hedge or garden.
Behind the hills rose the sharply-cut outlines of the naked cliffs of the
lofty, distant mountains, and the snowy head of sleeping Mount Etna
gleamed brightly through the mist.
Now, in the early morning, sea and garden, hills and distant mountains
were covered with a delicate veil of indescribable hue. It seemed as if
the sea had furnished the warp of this fabric, and the golden sun the
woof.
The scene was wondrously beautiful, but Xanthe had not gone to the spring
to gaze at the landscape; nay, she scarcely knew that it was lovely.
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