The morning is lovely beyond expression. The heat of the sun is great; but a gentle wind cools the air. Birds never sang more loud and clear. The flowers, too, on the window-sill, and on the table, rose, geranium, and the delicate crimson¹ cactus², are all so beautiful, that we think the German poet right, when he calls the flowers "stars in the firmament³ of the earth." Out of doors all is quiet. Opposite the window stands the village schoolhouse. There are two parasite⁴ trees, with their outspread branches nailed against the white walls, like the wings of culprit kites. There the rods grow. Under them, on a bench at the door, sit school-girls; and barefoot urchins⁵ in breeches are spelling out their lessons. The clock strikestwelve, and one by one they disappear, and go into the hive, like bees at the sound of a brass⁶ pan. At the door of the next house sits a poor woman, knitting in the shade; and in front of her is an aqueduct pouring its cool, clear water into a rough wooden trough. A travelling carriage without horses, stands at the inn-door, and a postilion in red jacket is talking with a blacksmith, who wears blue woollen stockings and a leather apron⁷. Beyond is a stable, and still further a cluster of houses and the village church. They are repairing the belfry and the bulbous steeple. A little farther, over the roofs of the houses, you can see Saint Wolfgang's Lake. Water so bright and beautiful hardly flows elsewhere. Green, and blue, and silver-white run into each other, with almost imperceptible change, like the streaks⁸ on the sides of a mackerel. And above are the pinnacles⁹ of the mountains; some bald, and rocky, and cone-shaped, and others bold, and broad, and dark with pines.

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