The Last Days of Pompeii, Volume 1

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Saunders and Otley, ... Simpkin, Marshall, and Company, ... Bell and Bradfute, Edinburgh; and J. Cumming, Dublin., 1840 - Pompeii (Extinct city) - 474 pages

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Page 434 - ... seemed to roll toward them, dark and rapid, like a torrent ; at the same time it cast forth from its bosom a shower of ashes mixed with vast fragments of burning stone. Over the crushing vines — over the desolate streets — over the Amphitheatre itself — far and wide — with many a mighty splash in the agitated sea — fell that awful shower!
Page 450 - These were of one deep blood-red hue of fire, which lighted up the whole atmosphere far and wide; but below, the nether part of the mountain was still dark and shrouded, save in three places, adown which flowed, serpentine and irregular,* rivers of the molten lava.
Page 78 - Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm ; it is the real allegory of the tale of Orpheus — it moves stones, it charms brutes. Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity, and truth accomplishes no victories without it.
Page 444 - In some places, immense fragments of rock, hurled upon the house roofs, bore down along the streets masses of confused ruin, which yet more and more, with every hour, obstructed the way ; and, as the day advanced, the motion of the earth was more sensibly felt — the footing seemed to slide and creep — nor could chariot or litter be kept steady, even on the most level ground.
Page 434 - Then there arose on high the universal shrieks of women; the men stared at each other, but were dumb. At that moment they felt the earth shake beneath their feet; the walls of the...
Page 444 - ... blue as the most azure depth of a southern sky ; now of a livid and snake-like green, darting restlessly to and fro as the folds of an enormous serpent ; now of a lurid and intolerable crimson, gushing forth through the columns of...
Page 452 - Meanwhile Nydia, when separated by the throng from Glaucus and lone, had in vain endeavoured to regain them. In vain she raised that plaintive cry so peculiar to the blind ; it was lost amidst a thousand shrieks of more selfish terror. Again and again she returned to the spot where they had been divided...
Page xii - It is true, that I neither can, nor do pretend, to the observation of complete accuracy, even in matters of outward costume, much less in the more important points of language and manners.
Page 448 - CHAPTER VIII ARBACES ENCOUNTERS GLAUCUS AND IONE ADVANCING, as men grope for escape in a dungeon, lone and her lover continued their uncertain way. At the moments when the volcanic lightnings lingered over the streets, they were enabled, by that awful light, to steer and guide their progress : yet, little did the view it presented to them cheer or encourage their path. In parts, where the ashes lay dry and uncommixed with the boiling torrents, cast upward from the mountain at capricious intervals,...
Page 450 - Suddenly, as he spoke, the place became lighted with an intense and lurid glow. Bright and gigantic through the darkness, which closed around it like the walls of hell, the mountain shone — a pile of fire! Its summit seemed riven in two; or rather, above its surface there seemed to rise two monster shapes, each confronting each, as Demons contending for a World. These were of one deep blood-red hue of fire, which lighted up the whole atmosphere far and wide; but below, the nether part of the mountain...

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