mysterious; no longer peopled with shadowy foes; no longer recalling
scenes of violence and murder; all was open, spacious, beautiful;
everything called up pleasing and romantic fancies; Lindaraxa once
more walked in her garden; the gay chivalry of Moslem Granada once
more glittered about the Court of Lions!

"Who can do justice to a moonlight night in such a climate and in such
a place? The temperature of a summer night in Andalusia is perfectly
ethereal. We seem lifted up into an ethereal atmosphere; we feel a
serenity of soul, a buoyancy of spirits, an elasticity of frame, which
render mere existence happiness. But when moonlight is added to all
this, the effect is like enchantment. Under its plastic sway the
Alhambra seems to regain its pristine glories. Every rent and chasm of
time; every moldering tint and weather-stain is gone; the marble
resumes its original whiteness; the long colonnades brighten in the
moonbeams; the halls are illuminated with a softened radiance--we
tread the enchanted palace of an Arabian tale!"

When one may journey with such a companion, through a whole volume of
enchantment and legend and moonlight, it is not strange that "The
Alhambra" has been one of the most widely read books ever produced by
an American writer.



CHAPTER XIV


THE LAST YEARS OF IRVING'S LIFE