Puslapio vaizdai
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all but incredible series of pinnacles, trenches, banks, and walls, not one of which was in the least in accordance with the natural customs of the country.

So, after having acted as rescuer, the collie was taking the part of guide, and was tracing out the slight sheep path which lay beneath the snow, and which was so deeply buried that no human eye could have discovered it.

A more curious sight I never witnessed. There was the steep side of the mountain, all covered with snow, shaped into the fantastic devices which have already been mentioned. Nearly half-way up it were the dog, the sheep, and the shepherd, all walking in Indian file, and all looking equally black against the white snow.

I mention the dog first, because he was the only one who seemed to have any spirit in him. The sheep crawled slowly and feebly along, the shepherd was plowing his way through the snow, bending forward against the wind, his plaid wrapped tightly about him, and his bonnet pulled over his eyes.

But the dog was full of life and spirit, every now and then almost disappearing in the deep snow, and then emerging as lively as ever.

J. G. WOOD.

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Every one remembers the first landscape he painted as a child, when his father or his uncle gave him a long-expected box of colors. Usually we wish to paint some delicious place, such as we dream of in school while we doze over the last Latin lesson toward the end of the month of June.

To make this spot really delightful we attempt to put in a tiny space a villa, a garden, a lake, a wood, a meadow, a kitchen-garden, a river, a bridge, a grotto, a cascade; and we crowd them all together; and that nothing shall escape the eye of the spectator, we paint everything in the brightest, gaudiest colors in the box; and when all is finished, we fancy we have not taken advantage of every bit of space.

And we stick a house here, a tree there, and a cottage at the bottom; and when at last it is no longer possible to put in even a blade of grass, a stone, or a flower, we lay down our brush quite satisfied with the work, and run to show it to the servant, who clasps her hands in wonder and exclaims that it is truly an earthly paradise.

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Well, Zaandam, seen from the river, is exactly like one of those landscapes.

All the houses are green, and the roofs are covered with the reddest of red tiles, on which rise turrets which are green, too, surmounted by manycolored weathercocks or by striped wooden balls placed on iron poles; little towers crowned with balustrades and pavilions; buildings in the form of temples and villas; sheds and hovels, of a structure never seen before, crowded closely against each other and seeming to dispute the space, all vanity and show.

In the midst of these buildings are little streets, hardly wide enough for one person to pass through, squares as narrow as rooms, courtyards little bigger than a table, canals down which only a duck could swim, and in front, between the houses and the banks of the river, are childish little gardens full of huts, chicken-houses, arbors, railings, toy windmills and weeping willows.

In front of these gardens, on the banks of the river, are little ports full of little green boats tied to little green posts.

In the midst of this medley of gardens and sheds very high windmills rise on every side. These are also painted green and striped in white, or painted white and bordered with green. Their arms are painted like flagstaffs, and are gilded and ornamented with circles of many shades,

There are green steeples, varnished from the bottom to the top-churches that look like booths at a fair, checkered and bordered in every tint of the rainbow.

But the strangest thing of all is that the buildings, which are small enough at the entrance to the river, decrease in size as one proceeds, as if the population were distributed according to their height, until at the end there are sentinel boxes, hen-coops, mousetraps, -a real human beehive, where children look like giants and the cats jump from the pavement to the roof.

Here, however, there still are gardens; but the garden is entirely filled by one bench, a summerhouse capable of holding one person only; pavilions as large as umbrellas, weeping willows, little staircases, diminutive windmills, weathercocks, flowers, and color.

"Is this really the serious work of men?" one asks one's self in front of this spectacle. Is this really a city? Will it be here next year? Has it not, rather, been built for a festival, and next week will it not be all pulled down and piled up in the warehouse of some Amsterdam decorator ?

EDMONDO DE AMICIS.

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