Safar Nameh, Persian Pictures: A Book Of Travel

Safar Nameh, Persian Pictures: A Book Of Travel

Warum bin ich vergnglich, O Zeus? so fragte die Schnheit. Macht ich doch, sagte der Gott, nur das Vergngliche schn. Und die Liebe, die Blumen, der Tau und die Jugend vernahmens, Alle gingen sie weg weinend von Jupiters Thron. Now, a traveller is a creature not always looking at sightshe remembers (how often!) the happy land of his birth; he has, too, his moments of humble enthusiasm about fire and foodabout shade and drink. The modern capital of Persia lies in a plain ringed half-way round by mountains, which on the northern side touch with frozen summits the regions of eternal snow, and on the east sink into low ranges of hills, stretching their naked arms into the desert. It is the chief city of a land of dust and stoneswaste and desolate, Persia unfolds her monotonous length, broken only by ridges of hills even more barren than the plain itself, southward from the gates of Tehran. There[2] is a certain fine simplicity in a landscape from which the element of water, with all the varied life it brings in its murmuring train, is entirely absent. The empty world looks like a great room cleared for the reception of some splendid company; presently it will be filled by a vast pageant of men or angels: their lance-heads will flash back the dazzling rays of the sun, their banners will float out many-coloured against the sombre background, the peal of their trumpets will re-echo from mountain to mountain. But no! day after day rises upon the same silence, the same solitude, and at length the watcher turns away impatiently, with the conviction that he has been gazing with futile expectation upon the changeless features of the dead. The pageant has long since swept over the landswept onward. Mother of human energies, strewn with the ruins of a Titanic past, Persia has slipped out of the[3] vivid world, and the simplicity of her landscape is the fine simplicity of death. Alas, poor Yorick! says Hamlet, yielding, in an exceptionally unpremeditated moment, the natural tribute of pity from the living to the dead. Persia in such an aspect may be pitiful enough, but it is not admirable. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 47612
Author: Bell, Gertrude Lowthian
Release Date: Dec 9, 2014
Format: eBook
Language: English