Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/202

188 As there are many Englishmen living in Italy, it is not unnatural that their ways and habits should excite notice; and I expected to learn from this piece what the Italians thought of their rich and welcome visitors. But it was a total failure. There were, of course (as is always the case here), some clever scenes between buffoons; but the rest was cast altogether in too grave and heavy a mould, and yet not a trace of the English good sense; plenty of the ordinary Italian commonplaces of morality, and those, too, upon the most common topics.

And it did not take: indeed, it was on the very point of being hissed off the stage. The actors felt themselves out of their element, not on the strand of Chiozza. As this was the last piece that I saw here, my enthusiasm for these national representations did not seem likely to be increased by this piece of folly.

As I have at last gone through my journal, and entered some occasional remarks from my tablets, my proceedings are now enrolled, and left to the sentence of my friends. There is, I am conscious, very much in these leaves which I might qualify, enlarge upon, and improve. Let, however, what is written stand as the memorial of first impressions, which, if not always correct, will nevertheless be ever dear and precious to me. Oh, that I could but transmit to my friends a breath merely of this light existence! Verily, to the Italian, "ultramontane" is a very vague idea; and, before my mind even, "beyond the Alps" rises very obscurely, although from out of their mists friendly forms are beckoning to me. It is the climate only that seduces me to prefer awhile these lands to those; for birth and habit forge strong fetters. Here, however, I could not live, nor, indeed, in any place where I had nothing to occupy my mind; but at present novelty furnishes me here with endless occupation. Architecture rises, like an ancient spirit from the tombs,