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Cooper, James Fenimore, 1789-1851

"The Wing-and-Wing Le Feu-Follet"


There is nothing more repugnant to the general sense of rights, than the
prostitution of public justice to the purposes of private vengeance.
Such would seem to have been the reason of the very general odium
attached to the execution of Admiral Prince Caraccioli, who was the
victim of circumstances, rather than the promoter of treason. The whole
transaction makes a melancholy episode in the history of modern Europe.
We have made such use of it as is permitted to fiction, neither
neglecting the leading and known facts of the event, nor adhering to the
minuter circumstances more closely than the connection of our
tale demanded.

WING-AND-WING.
CHAPTER I.
"Filled with the face of heaven, which from afar
Comes down upon the waters; all its hues,
From the rich sunset to the rising star,
Their magical variety diffuse:
And now they change: a paler shadow strews
Its mantle o'er the mountains; parting day
Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues
With a new color as it gasps away,
The last still loveliest, till--'tis gone--and all is grey."
_Childe Harold._
The charms of the Tyrrhenian Sea have been sung since the days of Homer.
That the Mediterranean generally, and its beautiful boundaries of Alps
and Apennines, with its deeply indented and irregular shores, forms the
most delightful region of the known earth, in all that relates to
climate, productions, and physical formation, will be readily enough
conceded by the traveller.


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