nce of its own in this
delightful picture, from the sparkling mica-stone to the bleached tuft
of grass hidden away in the soft shadows; the spotted cow with its
glossy hide, the delicate water-plants that hung down over the pool like
fringes in a nook where blue or emerald colored insects were buzzing
about, the roots of trees like a sand-besprinkled shock of hair above
grotesque faces in the flinty rock surface,--all these things made a
harmony for the eye.

The odor of the tepid water; the scent of the flowers, and the breath of
the caverns which filled the lonely place gave Raphael a sensation that
was almost enjoyment. Silence reigned in majesty over these woods, which
possibly are unknown to the tax-collector; but the barking of a couple
of dogs broke the stillness all at once; the cows turned their heads
towards the entrance of the valley, showing their moist noses to
Raphael, stared stupidly at him, and then fell to browsing again. A
goat and her kid, that seemed to hang on the side of the crags in some
magical fashion, capered and leapt to a slab of granite near to Raphael,
and stayed there a moment, as if to seek to know who he was. The yapping
of the dogs brought out a plump child, who stood agape, and next came a
white-haired old man of middle height. Both of these two beings were in
keeping with the surroundings, the air, the flowers, and the dwelling.
Health appeared to overflow in this fertile region; old age and
childhood thrived there. There seemed to be, about all these types of
existence, the freedom and carelessness of the life of primitive times,
a happiness of use and wont that gave the lie to our philosophical
platitudes, and wrought a cure of all its swelling passions in the
heart.

The old man belonged to the type of model dear to the masculine brush
of Schnetz. The countless wrinkles upon his brown face looked as if
they would be hard to the touch; the straight nose, the prominent
cheek-bones, streaked with red veins like a vine-leaf in autumn, the
angular features, all were characteristics of strength, even where
strength existed no longer. The hard hands, now that they toiled no
longer, had preserved their scanty white hair, his bearing was that of
an absolutely free man; it suggested the thought that, had he been
an Italian, he would have perhaps turned brigand, for the love of the
liberty so dear to him. The child was a regular mountaineer, with the
black eyes that can face the sun without