The Court of Lions.
THE peculiar charm of this dreamy old palace is its power of calling
up vague reveries and picturings of the past, and thus clothing
naked realities with the illusions of the memory and the
imagination. As I delight to walk in these "vain shadows," I am
prone to seek those parts of the Alhambra which are most favorable
to this phantasmagoria of the mind; and none are more so than the
Court of Lions, and its surrounding halls. Here the hand of time has
fallen the lightest, and the traces of Moorish elegance and splendor
exist in almost their original brilliancy. Earthquakes have shaken the
foundations of this pile, and rent its rudest towers; yet see! not one
of those slender columns has been displaced, not an arch of that light
and fragile colonnade given way, and all the fairy fretwork of these
domes, apparently as unsubstantial as the crystal fabrics of a
morning's frost, exist after the lapse of centuries, almost as fresh
as if from the hand of the Moslem artist. I write in the midst of
these mementos of the past, in the fresh hour of early morning, in the
fated Hall of the Abencerrages. The blood-stained fountain, the
legendary monument of their massacre, is before me; the lofty jet
almost casts its dew upon my paper. How difficult to reconcile the
ancient tale of violence and blood with the gentle and peaceful
scene around! Everything here appears calculated to inspire kind and
happy feelings, for everything is delicate and beautiful.
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