Italian Hours
Excerpt
The chapters of which this volume is composed have with
few
exceptions already been collected, and were then
associated
with others commemorative of other impressions of (no
very
extensive) excursions and wanderings. The notes on
various
visits to Italy are here for the first time exclusively
placed
together, and as they largely refer to quite other days
than
these—the date affixed to each paper sufficiently
indicating
this—I have introduced a few passages that speak for a
later
and in some cases a frequently repeated vision of the places
and
scenes in question. I have not hesitated to amend my
text,
expressively, wherever it seemed urgently to ask for
this,
though I have not pretended to add the element of information
or
the weight of curious and critical insistence to a brief
record
of light inquiries and conclusions. The fond appeal of
the
observer concerned is all to aspects and
appearances—above all
to the interesting face of things as it mainly used
to
be.
