wealth and the deep grace of her encroachments, and the melodious
invasions of her silence. A grave and pensive enthusiasm fills one's
soul; one feels that the sap flows in the trees and that the grass grows
with the same strength and the same rhythm, as the stones crumble and
the walls cave in. A sublime art, in the supreme accord of secondary
discordances, has contrasted the unruly ivy with the sinuous sweep of
the ruins, the brambles with the heaps of crumbling stones, the
clearness of the atmosphere with the strong projections of the masses,
the colour of the sky with the colour of the earth, reflecting each one
in the other: that which was, and that which is. Thus history and nature
always reveal, though they may accomplish it in a circumscribed spot of
the world, the unceasing relation, the eternal hymen of dying humanity
and the growing daisy; of the stars that glow, and the men who expire,
of the heart that beats and the wave that rises. And this is so clearly
indicated here, is so overwhelming, that one shudders inwardly, as if
this dual life centred in one's own body; so brutal and immediate is the
perception of these harmonies and developments. For the eye also has its
orgies and the mind its delights.

At the foot of two large trees, the trunks of which are intersected, a
stream of light floods the grass and seems like a luminous river,
brightening the solitude. Overhead, a dome of leaves, through which one
can see the sky presenting a vivid contrast of blue, reverberates a
bright, greenish light, which illuminates the ruins, accentuating the
deep furrows, intensifying the shadows, and disclosing all the hidden
beauties. You advance and walk between those walls and under the trees,
wander along the barbicans, pass under the falling arcades from which
spring large, waving plants. The vaults, which contain corpses, echo
under your footfalls; lizards run in the grass, beetles creep along the
walls, the sky is blue, and the sleepy ruins pursue their dream.