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Chapters (26)
  1. Feature
  2. PREFACE
  3. VENICE
  4. THE GRAND CANAL
  5. VENICE: AN EARLY IMPRESSION
  6. TWO OLD HOUSES AND THREE YOUNG WOMEN
  7. CASA ALVISI
  8. FROM CHAMBÉRY TO MILAN
  9. THE OLD SAINT-GOTHARD LEAVES FROM A NOTE-BOOK
  10. ITALY REVISITED
  11. A ROMAN HOLIDAY
  12. ROMAN RIDES
  13. ROMAN NEIGHBOURHOODS
  14. THE AFTER-SEASON IN ROME
  15. FROM A ROMAN NOTE-BOOK
  16. A FEW OTHER ROMAN NEIGHBOURHOODS
  17. A CHAIN OF CITIES
  18. SIENA EARLY AND LATE
  19. THE AUTUMN IN FLORENCE
  20. FLORENTINE NOTES
  21. TUSCAN CITIES
  22. OTHER TUSCAN CITIES
  23. RAVENNA
  24. THE SAINT'S AFTERNOON AND OTHERS
  25. You are reading a Deluxe Edition:
  26. Copyright

There had been this morning among the impressions of our first hour an unforgettable specimen of that general type - the image of one of those human figures on which our perception of the romantic so often pounces in Italy as on the genius of the scene personified; with this advantage, that as the scene there has, at its best, an unsurpassable distinction, so the physiognomic representative, standing for it all, and with an animation, a complexion, an expression, a fineness and fulness of humanity that appear to have gathered it in and to sum it up, becomes beautiful by the same simple process, very much, that makes the heir to a great capitalist rich. Our early start, our roundabout descent from Posilippo by shining Baire for avoidance of the city, had been an hour of enchantment beyond any notation I can here recover; all lustre and azure, yet all composition and classicism, the prospect developed and spread, till after extraordinary upper reaches pf radiance and horizons of pearl we came at the turn of a descent upon a stalwart young gamekeeper, or perhaps substantial young farmer, who, well-appointed and blooming, had unslung his gun and, resting on it beside a hedge, just lived for us, in the rare felicity of his whole look, during that moment and while, in recognition, or almost, as we felt, in homage, we instinctively checked our speed. He pointed, as it were, the lesson, giving the supreme right accent or final exquisite turn to the immense magnificent phrase; which from those moments on, and on and on, resembled doubtless nothing so much as a page written, by a consummate verbal economist and master of style, in the noblest of all tongues. Our splendid human plant by the wayside had flowered thus into style - and there wasn't to be, all day, a lapse of eloquence, a wasted word or a cadence missed.