Passages from the French and Italian Notebooks, Volume 1.

When we had looked long at these, the old gentleman led us into a chapel, of the same size as the former room, and built in the same fashion, wainscoted likewise with old oak. T...

In one of these upper rooms are some works of Bernini; two of them, Aeneas and Anchises, and David on the point of slinging a stone at Goliath, have great merit, and do not tear...

We arrived at Spoleto before noon, and while our dejeuner was being prepared, looked down from the window of the inn into the narrow street beneath, which, from the throng of pe...

The vivacity of the population in these parts is very striking, after the gravity and lassitude of Rome; and the air was made cheerful with the talk and laughter of hundreds of...

Hotel de Louvre, January 6th, 1858.--On Tuesday morning, our dozen trunks and half-dozen carpet-bags being already packed and labelled, we began to prepare for our journey two o...

In the morning there are few people there (on the Pincian) except the gardeners, lazily trimming the borders, or filling their watering-pots out of the marble-brimmed basin of t...

We had gone but a little way from the arch, and across the Circus Maximus, when we saw the Temple of Vesta before us, on the hank of the Tiber, which, however, we could not see...

I now left S------ in the Forum, and went to call on Mr. J. P. K------ at the Hotel d'Europe. I found him just returned from a drive,--a gentleman of about sixty, or more, with...

February 15th.--Yesterday was a bright day, but I did not go out till the afternoon, when I took an hour's walk along the Pincian, stopping a good while to look at the old begga...

I returned home early, in order to go with my wife to the Barberini Palace at two o'clock. We entered through the gateway, through the Via delle Quattro Fontane, passing one or...

In the afternoon Mr. Thompson and I went, for the third or fourth time, to negotiate with vetturinos. . . . So far as I know them they are a very tricky set of people, bent on g...

On Friday, we all went to see the Pope's Palace on the Quirinal. There was a vast hall, and an interminable suite of rooms, cased with marble, floored with marble or mosaics or...

There are a great number of public places in Marseilles, several of which are adorned with statues or fountains, or triumphal arches or columns, and set out with trees, and othe...

While we were down in the first chamber the proprietor of the spot--a half-gentlemanly and very affable kind of person--came to us, and explained the arrangements of the Columba...

Hotel de Louvre, January 12th.--This has been a bright day as regards weather; but I have done little or nothing worth recording. After breakfast, I set out in quest of the cons...

On coming out of St. Peter's at my last visit, I saw a great sheet of ice around the fountain on the right hand, and some little Romans awkwardly sliding on it. I, too, took a s...

By and by we left the casino and wandered among the grounds, threading interminable alleys of cypress, through the long vistas of which we could see here and there a statue, an...

Hence we drove on a little way farther, and came to the Basilica of San Sebastiano, where also we alighted, and, leaning on my arm, Mrs. Jameson went in. It is a stately and nob...

Our afternoon drive was more picturesque and noteworthy. Soracte rose before us, bulging up quite abruptly out of the plain, and keeping itself entirely distinct from a whole ho...

Through some other indirections we at last found the Rue Bergere, down which I went with J----- in quest of Hottinguer et Co., the bankers, while the rest of us went along the B...

June 5th.--For two or three mornings after breakfast I have rambled a little about the city till the shade grew narrow beneath the walls of the houses, and the heat made it unco...