HENRY JAMES
PORTRAITS OF PLACES
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
NOTE
The following papers originally appeared in the Century, theAtlantic Monthly, the Galaxy Magazine, in that ofLippincott, and in the New York Tribune and The Nation.The four last chapters in the book, which were the earliest published,can now have (in some slight degree) only the value of history. Thelapse of thirteen years will have brought many changes to Saratoga,Newport, Quebec, and Niagara.
CONTENTS
I. Venice
II. Italy Revisited
III. Occasional Paris
IV. Rheims and Laon: A Little Tour
V. Chartres
VI. Rouen
VII. Etretat
VIII. From Normandy to the Pyrenees
IX. An English Easter
X. London at Midsummer
XI. Two Excursions
XII. In Warwickshire
XIII. Abbeys and Castles
XIV. English Vignettes
XV. An English New Year
XVI. An English Winter Watering-Place
XVII. Saratoga
XVIII. Newport
XIX. Quebec
XX. Niagara
I
VENICE
1882
It is a great pleasure to write the word; but I am not sure there is nota certain impudence in pretending to add anything to it. Venice has beenpainted and described many thousands of times, and of all the cities ofthe world it is the easiest to visit without going there. Open the firstbook and you will find a rhapsody about it; step into the firstpicture-dealer's and you will find three or four high-coloured "views"of it. There is nothing more to be said about it. Every one has beenthere, and every one has brought back a collection of photographs. Thereis as little mystery about the Grand Canal as about our localthoroughfare; and the name of St. Mark is as familiar as the postman'sring. It is not forbidden, however, to speak of familiar things, and Ibelieve that, for the true Venice-lover, Venice is always in order.There is nothing new to be said about it certainly, but the old isbetter than any novelty. It would be a sad day, indeed, when thereshould be something new to say. I write these lines with the fullconsciousness of having no information whatever to offer. I do notpretend to enlighten the reader; I pretend only to give a fillip to hismemory; and I hold any writer sufficiently justified who is himself inlove with his topic.