THE STUDY OF NATURE, 43 
It was not the sweet austerity (soave austero) of Italy; it was 
a soft and overflowing profusion, under a warm, mild, and moist sky. 
Nothing appeared in sight, though a large town was close at 
hand, and a little river, the Erdre, wound under the hill, and from 
EMEY ee =. 
[eco 
thence dragged itself towards the Loire. But this vegetable pro- 
digality, this virgin forest of fruit trees, completely shut in the view. 
For a prospect, one must mount into a species of turret, whence the 
landscape began to reveal itself in a certain grandeur, with its woods 
and its meadows, its distant monuments, its towers. Even from this 
observatory the view was still limited, the city only appearing im- 
perfectly, and not allowing you to catch sight of its mighty river, 
its islands, its stir of commerce and navigation. A few paces from 
its great harbour, of whose existence there was no sign, one might 
believe oneself in a desert, in the landes of Brittany, or the clearings 
of La Vendée. 
Two things were of a lofty character, and detached them- 
