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Goethe's Travels In Italy: Together With His Second Residence In Rome And Fragments On Italy
Goethe's Travels In Italy Together With His Second Residence In Rome And Fragments On Italy Author:Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1885 Original Publisher: G. Bell and sons Subjects: Italy History / Europe / Italy Literary Criticism / European / German Poetry / Continental European Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missin... more »g text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: Venice, September 28, 1786. Now it stood written on my page in the Book of Fate, that on the evening of the 28th of September, by 5 o'clock, German time, I should see Venice for the first time, as I passed from the Brenta into the lagunes, and that, soon afterwards, 1 should actually enter and visit this strange island-city, this beaver-like republic. So now, Heaven be praised, Venice is no longer to me a bare and a hollow name, which has so long tormented me, -- me, the mental enemy of mere verbal sounds. As the first of the gondoliers came up to the ship (they come in order to convey more quickly to Venice those passengers who are in a hurry), I recollected an old plaything, ot which, perhaps, I had not thought for twenty years. My father had a beautiful model of a gondola which he had brought with him [from Italy; he set a great value upon it, and it was considered a great treat, when I was allowed to play with it. The first beaks of tinned iron-plate, the black gondola-cages, all greeted me like old acquaintances, and I experienced again dear emotions of my childhood which had been long unknown. I am well lodged at the sign of the Queen of England, not far from the square of S. Mark, which is, indeed, the chief advantage of the spot. My windows look upon a narrow canal between lofty houses, a bridge of one arch is immediately below me, and directly opposite is a narrow, bustling alley. Thus am I lodged, and here I shall remain until I have made up ...« less