Italian Hours

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Italian Hours, by Henry James (#45 in our series by Henry James) Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the header without written permission. Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. **Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** **eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** *****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** Title: Italian Hours Author: Henry James Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6354] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on November 29, 2002] Edition: 10 Language: English *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, ITALIAN HOURS *** This etext was prepared by Richard Farris (rf7211@hotmail.com), and proofread by the online team at Distributed Proofreaders. ITALIAN HOURS BY HENRY JAMES PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 1909 PREFACE 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. H. J.CONTENTS VENICE THE GRAND CANAL VENICE: AN EARLY IMPRESSION TWO OLD HOUSES AND THREE YOUNG WOMEN CASA AL VISI FROM CHAMBÉRY TO MILAN THE OLD SAINT-GOTHARD ITALY REVISITED A ROMAN HOLIDAY ROMAN RIDES ROMAN NEIGHBOURHOODS THE AFTER-SEASON IN ROME FROM A ROMAN NOTE-BOOK A FEW OTHER ROMAN NEIGHBOURHOODS A CHAIN OF CITIES SIENA EARLY AND LATE THE AUTUMN IN FLORENCE FLORENTINE NOTES TUSCAN CITIES OTHER TUSCAN CITIES RAVENNA THE SAINT'S AFTERNOON AND OTHERS ILLUSTRATIONS THE HARBOUR, GENOA (Frontispiece) FLAGS AT ST. MARK'S, VENICE A NARROW CANAL, VENICE PALAZZO MOCENIGO, VENICE THE AMPHITHEATRE, VERONA CASA ALVISI, VENICE THE SIMPLON GATE, MILAN THE CLOCK TOWER, BERNE UNDER THE ARCADES, TURIN ROMAN GATEWAY, RIMINI SANTA MARIA NOVELLA, FLORENCE THE FAÇADE OF ST. JOHN LATERAN, ROME THE COLONNADE OF ST. PETER'S, ROME CASTEL GANDOLFO ENTRANCE TO THE VATICAN, ROME VILLA D' ESTE, TIVOLI SUBIACO ASSISI PERUGIA ETRUSCAN GATEWAY, PERUGIA A STREET, CORTONA THE RED PALACE, SIENA SAN DOMENICO, SIENA ON THE ARNO, FLORENCE THE GREAT EAVES, FLORENCE BOBOLI GARDENS, FLORENCE THE HOSPITAL, PISTOIA THE LOGGIA, LUCCA TOWERS OF SAN GIMIGNANO SAN APOLLINARE NUOVO, RAVENNA RAVENNA PINETA TERRACINA VENICE It is a great pleasure to write the word; but I am not sure there is not a certain impudence in pretending to add anything to it. Venice has been painted and described many thousands of times, and of all the cities of the world is the easiest to visit without going there. Open the first book and you will find a rhapsody about it; step into the first picture-dealer's and you will find three or four high-coloured "views" of it. There is notoriously nothing more to be said on the subject. Every one has been there, and every one has brought back a collection of photographs. There is as little mystery about the Grand Canal as about our local thoroughfare, and the name of St. Mark is as familiar as the postman's ring. It is not forbidden, however, to speak of familiar things, and I hold that for the true Venice- loverVenice is always in order. There is nothing new to be said about her certainly, but the old is better than any novelty. It would be a sad day indeed when there should be something new to say. I write these lines with the full consciousness of having no information whatever to offer. I do not pretend to enlighten the reader; I pretend only to give a fillip to his memory; and I hold any writer sufficiently justified who is himself in love with his theme. I Mr. Ruskin has given it up, that is very true; but only after extracting half a lifetime of pleasure and an immeasurable quantity of fame from it. We all may do the same, after it has served our turn, which it probably will not cease to do for many a year to come. Meantime it is Mr. Ruskin who beyond anyone helps us to enjoy. He has indeed lately produced several aids to depression in the shape of certain little humorous—ill-humorous— pamphlets (the series of St. Mark's Rest) which embody his latest reflections on the subject of our city and describe the latest atrocities perpetrated there. These latter are numerous and deeply to be deplored; but to admit that they have spoiled Venice would be to admit that Venice may be spoiled—an admission pregnant, as it seems to us, with disloyalty. Fortunately one reacts against the Ruskinian contagion, and one hour of the lagoon is worth a hundred pages of demoralised prose. This queer late-coming prose of Mr. Ruskin (including the revised and condensed issue of the Stones of Venice, only one little volume of which has been published, or perhaps ever will be) is all to be read, though much of it appears addressed to children of tender age. It is pitched in the nursery-key, and might be supposed to emanate from an angry governess. It is, however, all suggestive, and much of it is delightfully just. There is an inconceivable want of form in it, though the author has spent his life in laying down the principles of form and scolding people for departing from them; but it throbs and flashes with the love of his subject—a love disconcerted and abjured, but which has still much of the force of inspiration. Among the many strange things that have befallen Venice, she has had the good fortune to become the object of a passion to a man of splendid genius, who has made her his own and in doing so has made her the world's. There is no better reading at Venice therefore, as I say, than Ruskin, for every true Venice-lover can separate the wheat from the chaff. The narrow theological spirit, the moralism à tout propos, the queer provincialities and pruderies, are mere wild weeds in a mountain of flowers. One