Winter Sunshine eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 218 pages of information about Winter Sunshine.

Winter Sunshine eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 218 pages of information about Winter Sunshine.
The day was bright and lovely, and I found my eyes running riot the same as they had done during my first ride on British soil.  The contrast between the two countries is quite marked, France in this region being much more broken and picturesque, with some waste or sterile land,—­a thing I did not see at all in England.  Had I awaked from a long sleep just before reaching Paris, I should have guessed I was riding through Maryland, and should soon see the dome of the Capitol at Washington rising above the trees.  So much wild and bushy or barren and half-cultivated land, almost under the walls of the French capital, was a surprise.

Then there are few or none of those immense home-parks which one sees in England, the land being mostly held by a great number of small proprietors, and cultivated in strips, or long, narrow parallelograms, making the landscape look like many-colored patchwork.  Everywhere along the Seine, stretching over the flats, or tilted up against the sides of the hills, in some places seeming almost to stand on end, were these acre or half-acre rectangular farms, without any dividing lines or fences, and of a great variety of shades and colors, according to the crop and the tillage.

I was glad to see my old friend, the beech-tree, all along the route.  His bole wore the same gray and patched appearance it does at home, and no doubt Thoreau would have found his instep even fairer; for the beech on this side of the Atlantic is a more fluent and graceful tree than the American species, resembling, in its branchings and general form, our elm, though never developing such an immense green dome as our elm when standing alone, and I saw no European tree that does.  The European elm is not unlike our beech in form and outline.

Going from London to Paris is, in some respects, like getting out of the chimney on to the housetop,—­the latter city is, by contrast, so light and airy, and so American in its roominess.  I had come to Paris for my dessert after my feast of London joints, and I suspect I was a little dainty in that most dainty of cities.  In fact, I had become quite sated with sight-seeing, and the prospect of having to go on and “do” the rest of Europe after the usual manner of tourists, and as my companions did, would have been quite appalling.  Said companions steered off like a pack of foxhounds in full blast.  The game they were in quest of led them a wild chase up the Rhine, off through Germany and Italy, taking a turn back through Switzerland, giving them no rest, and apparently eluding them at last.  I had felt obliged to cut loose from them at the outset, my capacity to digest kingdoms and empires at short notice being far below that of the average of my countrymen.  My interest and delight had been too intense at the outset; I had partaken too heartily of the first courses; and now, where other travelers begin to warm to the subject, and to have the keenest relish, I began to wish the whole thing well through with.  So that

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Winter Sunshine from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.