Excerpt from Letters From Italy The accompanying Letters were not originally written with the intention of being published in a book, and very probably would have been worse written if they had been. In passing through Italy, one is constantly subjected to sudden and great transitions of feeling. The classic land and the home of the Caesars, have so long been a portion of the scholar's dreams, and so brightly colored with his own feelings, that the very matter-of-fact objects that stare him in the face, when he is expecting some hallowed monument of the past, will of ten quite upset his gravity, and compel him to laugh, where he thought to have been serious and reflective. It has been my effort in these Letters to give a faithful transcript of my feelings, in all these sudden transitions. To some there may often appear too much lightness and frivolity. For ourselves, we like to have a man give himself in his travels - we wish to hear him soliloquizing - and we read his book not to learn that he can be, or is, a very serious and profound man, but to know, how things struck him - that is, travel with. Him. Amid the new and exciting scenes that constantly meet trav ellers, in perhaps a hurried passage over a country, they can not, and do not, have the views and feelings so often given, for appearance' sake, as their honest ones. Our purpose has been to let others, if possible, look through our eyes; and whether we have succeeded or not, or whether they would have obtained a very interesting view if they did, we leave the reader to judge. Descriptions of galleries of art, paintings, etc. Have been avoided, as possessing interest to those only who have travelled over the same ground, and become familiar with the details necessary to make those descriptions clear. We have attempted, also, to give some idea of the condition of the inhabitants, especially of the lower classes, as they are topics seldom referred to in passing over the most classic land on the globe. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.