Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents

_June_ 19_th_, 1780.—Shall I tell you my dreams?—To give an account of my time is doing, I assure you, but little better. Never did there exist a more ideal being. A frequent mi...

T’other minute I was in Greece, gathering the bloom of Hymettus, but now I am landed in Flanders, smoked with tobacco, and half poisoned with garlic. Were I to remain ten days a...

My windows look full upon the Place de Mer, and the sun, beaming through their white curtains, awoke me from a dream of Arabian happiness. Imagination had procured herself a ten...

I dedicated the morning to the Prince of Orange’s cabinet of paintings and curiosities both natural and artificial. Amongst the pictures which amused me the most is a St. Anthon...

The sky was clear and blue when we left the Hague, and we travelled along a shady road for about an hour, then down sunk the carriage into a sand-bed, and we were dragged along...

Well, thank Heaven, Amsterdam is behind us! How I got thither signifies not one farthing; it was all along a canal, as usual. The weather was hot enough to broil an inhabitant o...

From Utrecht to Bois le Duc nothing but sand and heath; no inspiration, no whispering foliage, not even a grasshopper, to put one in mind of Eclogues and Theocritus. “But why di...

_July _11_th_.—Let those who delight in picturesque country repair to the borders of the Rhine, and follow the road which we took from Bonn to Coblentz. In some places it is sus...

_August_ 27_th_.—I am just returned from visiting the isles of Burano, Torcello, and Mazorbo, distant about five miles from Venice. To these amphibious spots the Romans, inhabit...

_September_ 4_th_.—I was sorry to leave Venice, and regretted my peaceful excursions upon the Adriatic, when the Euganean hills were lost in a golden haze, and the sun cast his...

_September_ 5_th_.—The glow and splendour of the rising sun, for once in my life, drew little of my attention. I was too deeply plunged in my reveries, to notice the landscape w...

_September_ 6_th_.—At Padua, I was too near the last and one of the most celebrated abodes of Petrarch, to make the omission of a visit excusable; had I not been in a dispositio...

_September_ 7_th_.—Immediately after breakfast, we went to St. Justina’s, a noble temple, designed by Palladio, and worthy of his reputation. The dimensions are vast, and the eq...

You ask me how I pass my time. Generally upon the hills, in wild spots where the arbutus flourishes: from whence I may catch a glimpse of the distant sea; my horse tied to a cyp...

No sooner were we beyond the gates, than we found ourselves in narrow roads, shut in by vines and grassy banks of canes and osiers, rising high above our carriage, and waving th...

_October_ 3_rd_.—I went, as you would have done, to walk on the mole as soon as the sun began to shine upon it. Its construction you are no stranger to; therefore I think I may...

It was not without regret that I forced myself from Lucca. We had all the same road to go over again, that brought us to this important republic, but we broke down by way of var...

_October_ 22_nd_.—They say the air is worse this year at Rome than ever, and that it would be madness to go thither during its malign influence. This was very bad news indeed to...

_October_ 23_rd_.—Do you recollect our evening rambles last year upon the hill of pines? and the dark valley where we used to muse in the twilight? I remember we often fancied t...

At last fears were overcome, the epidemical fever at Rome allowed to be no longer dangerous, and myself permitted to quit Florence. The weather was neither gay nor dismal; the c...

I begin to despair of magical adventures, since none happened at Radicofani, which Nature seems wholly to have abandoned. Not a tree, not an acre of soil, has she bestowed upon...

We set out in the dark. Morning dawned over the Lago di Vico; its waters of a deep ultramarine blue, and its surrounding forests catching the rays of the rising sun. It was in v...

_November_ 8_th_.—This morning I awoke in the glow of sunshine; the air blew fresh and fragrant; never did I feel more elastic and enlivened. A brisker flow of spirits than I ha...

We made our excursion to Pompeii, passing through Portici, and over the last lava of Mount Vesuvius. I experienced a strange mixture of sensations, on surveying at once the misc...

My last letter was despatched in such a hurry that I had not time to conclude it. This will be nearly as imperfect; but yet I cannot forbear writing, having the vanity to believ...

For these ten days past have I been traversing Lapland: winds whistling in my ears, and cones showering down upon my head from the wilds of pine through which our route conducte...

This is the first day of summer; the oak leaves expand, the roses blow, butterflies are about, and I have spirits enough to write to you. We have had clouded skies this fortnigh...

No sooner had we passed Fuezen than we entered the Tyrol, and the country of wonders. Those lofty peaks, those steeps of wood I delight in, lay before us. Innumerable clear spri...

Once more, said I to myself, I shall have the delight of beholding Venice; so got into an open chaise, the strangest curricle that ever man was jolted in, and drove furiously al...

The morning was delightful, and St. Anthony’s bells in full chime. A shower which had fallen in the night rendered the air so cool and grateful, that Mad. de R. and myself deter...

It is needless for me to say I wish you with me: you know I do; you know how delightfully we should ramble about Rome together. This evening, instead of jiggeting along the Cors...

As soon as the sun declined I strolled into the Villa Medici; but finding it haunted by fine pink and yellow people, nay, even by the Spanish Ambassador, and several more dignif...

The sea-breezes restored me to life. I set the heat of midday at defiance, and do not believe in the horrors of the sirocco. Yesterday I passed at Portici, with Lady H. The morn...