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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text
Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1872 edition. Excerpt: ...and drain the flowing tide; others, ignoble murderers, which choke and destroy;--in a word, all the hideous forms of massacre and death. I imagine to myself, then, that the poor little musician whose voice is silenced--not his ingegno, nor his delicate thought--having HIS LONG NIGHT-JOURNEY. 189 no friend to consult, will pauee and anxiously reflect, before entering upon the long ambush of the pass of Savoy. He halts at the threshold, or on a friendly roof, well known to myself, or in the hallowed groves of the Charmettes, deliberates and says: If I pass during the day, they will all be there; they know the season; the eagle will pounce upon me; I die. If I pass by night, the great horn-owl (due), the common owl Qiibou), the entire host of horrible phantoms, with eyes enlarged in the darkness, will seize me, and carry me off to their young. Alas! what shall I do? I must endeavour to avoid both night and day. At the gloomy hour of dawn, when the cold, raw air chills in his eyrie the great fierce beast, which knows not how to build a nest, I may fly unperceived. And even if he see me, I shall be leagues away before he can put into motion the cumbrous machinery of his frozen wings. The calculation is judicious, but nevertheless a score of accidents may disturb it. Starting at midnight, he may encounter in the face, during Iris long flight across Savoy, the east wind, wluch engulfs and delays him, neutralizes his exertions, and fetters his pinions. Heavens! it is morning now. Those sombre giants, already clothed in October in their snowy mantles, reveal upon their vast expanse of glittering white a black spot, which moves with terrible rapidity. How gloomy are they already, these mountains, and of what evil augury, draped in the...
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