_ A naturalist
self-sacrificing enough may have this experience more cheaply at home.
The book before us is the record of a second residence in Italy, of
about two years. This in itself is an advantage; since a renewed
experience, after an interval of absence and distraction, enables us to
distinguish what had merely interested us by its strangeness from what
is permanently worthy of study and remembrance. In a second visit we
know at least what we do _not_ wish to see, and our first impressions
have so defined themselves that they afford us a safer standard of
comparison. To most travellers Italy is a land of pure vacation, a
lotus-eating region, "in which it seemeth always afternoon." But Mr.
Norton, whose book shows bow well his time had been employed at home,
could not but spend it to good purpose abroad. The word "study" has a
right to its place on his title-page, and his volume is worthy of a
student. He shows himself to be one who, like Wordsworth, "does not
much or oft delight in personal talk"; there is no gossip between the
covers of his book, no impertinent self-obtrusion. Familiar with what
has been written about Italy by others, he has known how to avoid the
trite highways, and by going back to what was old has found topics that
are really fresh and delightful.
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