It seemed to be poised upon the greenery, and rose up into the pure blue sky, sky-blue itself and so ethereal that it mingled with the azure of the infinite.
The stone lantern which surmounts it, white and dazzling, looked as though it were suspended on high.
Pierre did not weary, and his glances incessantly travelled from one end of the horizon to the other.

They lingered on the noble outlines, the proud gracefulness of the town-sprinkled Sabine and Alban mountains, whose girdle limited the expanse.

The Roman Campagna spread out in far stretches, bare and majestic, like a desert of death, with the glaucous green of a stagnant sea; and he ended by distinguishing "the stern round tower" of the tomb of Cecilia Metella, behind which a thin pale line indicated the ancient Appian Way.

Remnants of aqueducts strewed the short herbage amidst the dust of the fallen worlds.

And, bringing his glance nearer in, the city again appeared with its jumble of edifices, on which his eyes lighted at random.