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