Excerpt from The Romancists, Vol. 1 Regained the upper hand. As the hills came nearer together, hemming the valley in more closely, the clearings yielded to the resistance of a wild country. A little farther on they dis appeared altogether. From the foot of the cliffs that bordered the upper plateau of the mountains with a ribbon of granite, the forests extended triumphantly to the bank of the stream. In some places, there were large areas covered with enormous trees, like solid battalions of infantry; in other places, isolated trees seemed to have been planted at random in the Sloping turf, or clambered to the summit of the steepest cliffs like a party of fearless sharpshooters. Parallel with the course of the river ran a narrow road, but seldom used, if one could judge by the infrequent ruts climbing with the hill-sides, rushing down their steep slopes, crossing every obstacle, it ran almost in a straight line. It might well be compared to those energetic characters who set themselves a goal in life and march forward imperturbably toward that goal. The river, on the contrary, like the pliant, conciliatory spirits who bend as events sway them, constantly described graceful curves in obedience to the slightest caprice of the ground that served as its bed. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.