The Village Rector by Honoré De Balzac — Read

Veronique remained for some minutes under the chestnut trees, apparently looking at the landscape. Thence she could see that portion of the forest which clothes the side of the valley down which flows the torrent of the Gabou, now dry, a mass of stones, looking like a huge ditch cut between the wooded mountains of Montegnac and another chain of parallel hills beyond, -- the latter being much steeper and without vegetation, except for heath and juniper and a few sparse trees toward their summit.

These hills, desolate of aspect, belong to the neighboring domain and are in the department of the Correze. A country road, following the undulations of the valley, serves to mark the line between the arrondissement of Montegnac and the two estates. This barren slope supports, like a wall, a fine piece of woodland which stretches away in the distance from its rocky summit. Its barrenness forms a complete contrast to the other slope, on which is the cottage of Farrabesche. On the one side, harsh, disfigured angularities, on the other, graceful forms and curving outlines; there, the cold, dumb stillness of unfruitful earth held up by horizontal blocks of stone and naked rock, here, trees of various greens, now stripped for the most part of foliage, but showing their fine straight many-colored trunks on every slope and terrace of the land; their interlacing branches swaying to the breeze.