The Wheat Princess

‘Some day, Marcia, I will tell you that I’m proud to be an American. Don’t ask me just yet.’

And as they stood there, hand in hand, there was borne to them from the mountain-top above the sweet, prophetic sound of the bells of Castel Vivalanti ringing the Angelus; while below them on the horizon, like a great, far-reaching sea, stretched the Campagna, haunting, mysterious, insatiable—the Roman Campagna, that has demanded as sacrifice the lives of so many miserable peasants, that has lured from distant homes so many strangers and held them prisoners to its spell—the beautiful, deadly, desolate land that has inspired more passionate love than any land on earth.