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“Yes, indeed, you are to come; you must come. There’s going to be a band of music the whole time.” On the northern shore of Sicily are still to be seen the magnificent remains of a castle, which formerly belonged to the noble house of Mazzini. It stands in the centre of a small bay, and upon a gentle acclivity, which, on one side, slopes towards the sea, and on the other rises into an eminence crowned by dark woods. The situation is admirably beautiful and picturesque, and the ruins have an air of ancient grandeur, which, contrasted with the present solitude of the scene, impresses the traveller with awe and curiosity. During my travels abroad I visited this spot. As I walked over the loose fragments of stone, which lay scattered through the immense area of the fabrick, and surveyed the sublimity and grandeur of the ruins, I recurred, by a natural association of ideas, to the times when these walls stood proudly in their original splendour, when the halls were the scenes of hospitality and festive magnificence, and when they resounded with the voices of those whom death had long since swept from the earth. 'Thus,' said I, 'shall the present generation—he who now sinks in misery—and he who now swims in pleasure, alike pass away and be forgotten.' My heart swelled with the reflection; and, as I turned from the scene with a sigh, I fixed my eyes upon a friar, whose venerable figure, gently bending towards the earth, formed no uninteresting object in the picture. He observed my emotion; and, as my eye met his, shook his head and pointed to the ruin. 'These walls,' said he, 'were once the seat of luxury and vice. They exhibited a singular instance of the retribution of Heaven, and were from that period forsaken, and abandoned to decay.' His words excited my curiosity, and I enquired further concerning their meaning. They came to the kingdom of the cock-chafers; and these were in such numbers, and made such a loud buzzing, that the King feared he should become deaf. He asked one of them, who appeared to him to have the most intelligence, whether he knew where the King of the Peacocks was to be found. "Sire," replied the cock-chafer, "his kingdom lies thirty thousand leagues from here; you have chosen the longest way to reach it." "And how do you know that?" asked the King. "Because," answered the cock-chafer, "we know you very well, for every year we spend two or three months in your gardens." Whereupon the King and his brother embraced the cock-chafer, and they went off arm in arm to dine together, and the two strangers admired all the curiosities of that new country, where the smallest leaf of a tree was worth a gold piece. After that, they continued their journey, and having been directed along the right way, they were not long in reaching its close. On their arrival, they found all the trees laden with peacocks, and, indeed, there were peacocks everywhere, so that they could be heard talking and screaming two leagues off..
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Conrad
They had now to dread the effect of that tender anxiety, which had excited his resentment; and Julia, suddenly elated to joy by his first determination, was as suddenly sunk to despair by his last. She trembled with apprehension of the coming interview, though each moment of delay which her fear solicited, would, by heightening the resentment of the Abate, only increase the danger she dreaded. A miller bequeathed to his three sons all he possessed of worldly goods, which consisted only of his Mill, his Ass, and his Cat. It did not take long to divide the property, and neither notary nor attorney was called in; they would soon have eaten up the poor little patrimony. The eldest son had the Mill; the second son, the Ass; and the youngest had nothing but the Cat. Another shaking of the branches. Besides some decayed ones, four good apples fell, hitting the ground with such force that these, too, were crushed or cracked. Tellef was down on the instant. My, oh, my! but they were delicious apples. Neither of the boys had ever tasted any equal to them. A sharp knock sounded on Aunt Grenertsen’s window, and Johnny hurried over there. Father and Mother looked at the report. “Very good, John,” said Father; and Johnny felt Mother’s gentle hand stroking his hair..
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