Classicly

Sons of the Soil is a French fiction work translated into English, written by French novelist and playwright Honore de Balzac, who was best known for his novel "La Comédie humaine".

Excerpts:

These dusty and deserted lodges give entrance to a magnificent avenue of centennial elms, whose umbrageous heads lean toward each other and form a long and most majestic arbor. The grass grows in this avenue, and only a few wheel-tracks can be seen along its double width of way. The great age of the trees, the breadth of the avenue, the venerable construction of the lodges, the brown tints of their stone courses, all bespeak an approach to some half-regal residence.