VALLOMBROSA BY W. W. STORY AUTHOR OF 'ROBA DI ROMA,' 'GRAFFITI D'ITALIA,' 'NERO,' ETC.. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS MDCCCLXXXI All Rights reserved VALLOMBROSA. N the latter part of last October I found myself IN in the lower slopes of the Apennines, on the shadowy hills of Vallombrosa. Its very name, which Milton has made familiar to English ears, has a poetic and romantic attraction; and whenever it is pronounced, there rises in the memory his famous simile of the innumerable legions of angelic forms "who lay entranced, Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades High overarched embower." But of the many who know by heart these magical lines, how few there are to whom Vallom A |