roofs, and crosses
whole--lies exquisitely mirrored in the river below, where hollow
willows, grotesquely shaped (some of them rooted on the river's banks,
and some in the water itself, and all drooping their branches until
their leaves have formed a tangle with the water lilies which float on
the surface), seem to be gazing at the marvellous reflection at their
feet.

Thus the view from below is beautiful indeed. But the view from above
is even better. No guest, no visitor, could stand on the balcony of the
mansion and remain indifferent. So boundless is the panorama revealed
that surprise would cause him to catch at his breath, and exclaim: "Lord
of Heaven, but what a prospect!" Beyond meadows studded with spinneys
and water-mills lie forests belted with green; while beyond, again,
there can be seen showing through the slightly misty air strips of
yellow heath, and, again, wide-rolling forests (as blue as the sea or a
cloud), and more heath, paler than the first, but still yellow. Finally,
on the far horizon a range of chalk-topped hills gleams white, even in
dull weather, as though it were lightened with perpetual sunshine;
and here and there on the dazzling whiteness of its lower slopes some
plaster-like, nebulous patches represent far-off villages which lie
too remote for the eye to discern their details. Indeed, only when the
sunlight touches a steeple to gold does one realise that each such
patch is a human settlement. Finally, all is wrapped in an immensity of
silence which even the far, faint echoes of persons singing in the void
of the plain cannot shatter.

Even after gazing at the spectacle for a couple of hours or so, the
visitor would still find nothing to say, save: "Lord of Heaven, but
what a prospect!" Then who is the dweller in, the proprietor of, this
manor--a manor to which, as to an impregnable fortress, entrance cannot
be gained from the side where we have been standing, but only from the
other approach, where a few scattered oaks offer hospitable welcome to
the visitor, and then, spreading above him their spacious branches (as
in friendly embrace), accompany him to the facade of the mansion whose
top we have been regarding from the reverse aspect, but which now stands
frontwise on to us, and has, on one side of it, a row of peasants' huts
with red tiles and carved gables, and, on the other, the village church,
with those glittering golden crosses and gilded open-work charms which
seem to hang s