Library / Literature & Fiction
Vittoria — Volume 1
- Pages
- about 86
- Category
- Literature & Fiction
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 1.6 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
BOOK 1.
I. UP MONTE MOTTERONE
II. ON THE HEIGHTS
III. SIGNORINA VITTORIA
IV. AMMIANI'S INTERCESSION
V. THE SPY
VI. THE WARNING
VII. BARTO RIZZO
VIII. THE LETTER
From Monte Motterone you survey the Lombard plain. It is a towering dome
of green among a hundred pinnacles of grey and rust-red crags. At dawn
the summit of the mountain has an eagle eye for the far Venetian boundary
and the barrier of the Apennines; but with sunrise come the mists. The
vast brown level is seen narrowing in; the Ticino and the Sesia waters,
nearest, quiver on the air like sleepy lakes; the plain is engulphed up
to the high ridges of the distant Southern mountain range, which lie
stretched to a faint cloud-like line, in shape like a solitary monster of
old seas crossing the Deluge. Long arms of vapour stretch across the
urn-like valleys, and gradually thickening and swelling upward, enwrap
the scored bodies of the ashen-faced peaks and the pastures of the green
mountain, till the heights become islands over a forgotten earth. Bells
of herds down the hidden run of the sweet grasses, and a continuous
leaping of its rivulets, give the Motterone a voice of youth and
homeliness amid that stern company of Titan-heads, for whom the hawk and
the vulture cry. The storm has beaten at them until they have got the
aspect of the storm. They take colour from sunlight, and are joyless in
colour as in shade. When the lower world is under pushing steam, they
wear the look of the revolted sons of Time, fast chained before scornful
heaven in an iron peace. Day at last brings vigorous fire; arrows of
light pierce the mist-wreaths, the dancing draperies, the floors of
vapour; and the mountain of piled pasturages is seen with its foot on the
shore of Lago Maggiore. Down an extreme gulf the full sunlight, as if
darting on a jewel in the deeps, seizes the blue-green lake with its
isles.
A short sample. Read the whole book
More to read
- "Captains Courageous": A Story of the Grand BanksRudyard KiplingLiterature & Fiction191 pages
- "Captains Courageous": A Story of the Grand BanksRudyard KiplingLiterature & Fiction191 pages
- "I Say No"Wilkie CollinsLiterature & Fiction428 pages
- "Miss Lou"Edward Payson RoeLiterature & Fiction409 pages
- "Speaking of Operations--"Irvin S. CobbLiterature & Fiction37 pages
Public-domain text from Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks or a similar open source. Copyright differs between countries. Rights holder? See our takedown process.