In Spite Of Her Nearly Eighty Years She Was Active As A Woman Of
Forty, And Altogether She Was A Very Grand Old Lady.
Her house is
scrupulously clean.
While I watched her spinning, I thought of
what must so often occur to summer visitors. I mean what sort of a
look-out the old woman must have in winter, when the wind roars and
whistles, and the snow drives down the valley with a fury of which
we in England can have little conception. What a place to see a
snowstorm from! and what a place from which to survey the landscape
next morning after the storm is over and the air is calm and
brilliant. There are such mornings: I saw one once, but I was at
the bottom of the valley and not high up, as at Ronco. Ronco would
take a little sun even in midwinter, but at the bottom of the
valley there is no sun for weeks and weeks together; all is in deep
shadow below, though the upper hillsides may be seen to have the
sun upon them. I walked once on a frosty winter's morning from
Airolo to Giornico, and can call to mind nothing in its way more
beautiful: everything was locked in frost - there was not a
waterwheel but was sheeted and coated with ice: the road was hard
as granite - all was quiet and seen as through a dark but incredibly
transparent medium. Near Piotta I met the whole village dragging a
large tree; there were many men and women dragging at it, but they
had to pull hard and they were silent; as I passed them I thought
what comely, well-begotten people they were.
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