s taught him that
direct diction, that choice simplicity, which forsakes the stilted
Italian of literary tradition for a style far simpler, stronger, and
more natural.

All selections used by permission of G. P. Putnam's Sons.

THE LIGHT

From 'Constantinople'

And first of all, the light! One of my dearest delights at
Constantinople was to see the sun rise and set, standing upon the bridge
of the Sultana Valide. At dawn, in autumn, the Golden Horn is almost
always covered by a light fog, behind which the city is seen vaguely,
like those gauze curtains that descend upon the stage to conceal the
preparations for a scenic spectacle. Scutari is quite hidden; nothing is
to be seen but the dark uncertain outline of her hills. The bridge and
the shores are deserted, Constantinople sleeps; the solitude and silence
render the spectacle more solemn. The sky begins to grow golden behind
the hills of Scutari. Upon that luminous strip are drawn, one by one,
black and clear, the tops of the cypress trees in the vast cemetery,
like an army of giants ranged upon the heights; and from one cape of the
Golden Horn to the other there shines a tremulous light, faint as the
first murmur of the awakening city. Then behind the cypresses of the
Asiatic shore comes forth an eye of fire, and suddenly the white tops of
the four minarets of Saint Sophia are tinted with deep rose. In a few
minutes, from hill to hill, from mosque to mosque, down to the end of
the Golden Horn, all the minarets, one after the other, turn rose color;
all the domes, one by one, are silvered, the flush descends from terrace
to terrace, the tremulous light spreads, the great veil melts, and all
Stamboul appears, rosy and resplendent upon her heights, blue and violet
along the shores, fresh and young, as if just risen from the waters.

As the sun rises, the delicacy of the first tints vanishes in an immense
illumination, and everything remains bathed in white light until toward
evening. Then the divine spectacle begins again. The air is so limpid
that from Galata one can see clearly every distant tree, as far as
Kadi-Kioi. The whole of the immense profile of Stamboul stands out
against the sky with such a clearness of line and rigor of color, that
every minaret, obelisk, and cypress-tree can be counted, one by one,
from Seraglio Point to the cemetery of Eyub. The Golden Horn and the
Bosphorus assume a wonderful ultramarine color; the heavens, the color
of amethyst