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death, shall be drawn before thee, swift as the rack driven by the north
wind along the blotted splendour of the sky.
Weed-grown fields, desolate towns, the wild approach of riderless horses
had now become habitual to my eyes; nay, sights far worse, of the unburied
dead, and human forms which were strewed on the road side, and on the steps
of once frequented habitations, where,
Through the flesh that wastes away
Beneath the parching sun, the whitening bones
Start forth, and moulder in the sable dust.[2]
Sights like these had become--ah, woe the while! so familiar, that we had
ceased to shudder, or spur our stung horses to sudden speed, as we passed
them. France in its best days, at least that part of France through which
we travelled, had been a cultivated desert, and the absence of enclosures,
of cottages, and even of peasantry, was saddening to a traveller from sunny
Italy, or busy England. Yet the towns were frequent and lively, and the
cordial politeness and ready smile of the wooden-shoed peasant restored
good humour to the splenetic. Now, the old woman sat no more at the door
with her distaff--the lank beggar no longer asked charity in
courtier-like phrase; nor on holidays did the peasantry thread with slow
grace the mazes of the dance. Silence, melancholy bride of death, went in
procession with him from town to town through the spacious region.
We arrived at Fontainebleau, and speedily prepared for the reception of our
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