e question; even
in Florence, I only stayed three hours. Now I am here at my ease, and as
it would seem, shall be tranquilized for my whole life; for we may
almost say that a new life begins when a man once sees with his own eyes
all that before he has but partially heard or read of.

All the dreams of my youth I now behold realized before me; the subjects
of the first engravings I ever remembered seeing (several views of Rome
were hung up in an anteroom of my father's house) stand bodily before my
sight, and all that I had long been acquainted with, through paintings
or drawings, engravings, or wood-cuts, plaster-casts, and cork models
are here collectively presented to my eye. Wherever I go I find some old
acquaintance in this new world; it is all just as I had thought it, and
yet all is new; and just the same might I remark of my own observations
and my own ideas. I have not gained any new thoughts, but the older ones
have become so defined, so vivid, and so coherent, that they may almost
pass for new ones....

I have now been here seven days, and by degrees have formed in my mind a
general idea of the city. We go diligently backward and forward. While I
am thus making myself acquainted with the plan of old and new Rome,
viewing the ruins and the buildings, visiting this and that villa, the
grandest and most remarkable objects are slowly and leisurely
contemplated. I do but keep my eyes open and see, and then go and come
again, for it is only in Rome one can duly prepare oneself for Rome. It
must, in truth, be confessed, that it is a sad and melancholy business
to prick and track out ancient Rome in new Rome; however, it must be
done, and we may hope at least for an incalculable gratification. We
meet with traces both of majesty and of ruin, which alike surpass all
conception; what the barbarians spared, the builders of new Rome made
havoc of....

When one thus beholds an object two thousand years old and more, but so
manifoldly and thoroughly altered by the changes of time, but, sees
nevertheless, the same soil, the same mountains, and often indeed the
same walls and columns, one becomes, as it were, a contemporary of the
great counsels of Fortune, and thus it becomes difficult for the
observer to trace from the beginning Rome following Rome, and not only
new Rome succeeding to the old, but also the several epochs of both old
and new in succession. I endeavor, first of all, to grope my way alone
through the obscu