The Diary of a Man of Fifty

By James, Henry

Book Id: WPLBN0000240296
Format Type: PDF eBook
File Size: 0.6 MB
Reproduction Date: 2005

Title:	The Diary of a Man of Fifty
Author:	James, Henry
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Literature, Literature & thought, Writing.
Collections:	Classic Literature Collection
Historic Publication Date:
Publisher:	World Ebook Library


Citation APA MLA Chicago James, H. (n.d.). The Diary of a Man of Fifty. Retrieved from http://www.gutenberg.cc/

Excerpt
Florence, April 5th, 1874. -- They told me I should find Italy greatly changed; and in seven-and-twenty years there is room for changes. But to me everything is so perfectly the same that I seem to be living my youth over again; all the forgotten impressions of that enchanting time come back to me. At the moment they were powerful enough; but they afterwards faded away. What in the world became of them? Whatever becomes of such things, in the long intervals of consciousness? Where do they hide themselves away? in what unvisited cupboards and crannies of our being do they preserve themselves? They are like the lines of a letter written in sympathetic ink; hold the letter to the fire for a while and the grateful warmth brings out the invisible words. It is the warmth of this yellow sun of Florence that has been restoring the text of my own young romance; the thing has been lying before me today as a clear, fresh page. There have been moments during the last ten years when I have fell so portentously old, so fagged and finished, that I should have taken as a very bad joke any intimation that this present sense of juvenility was still in store for me. It won’t last, at any rate; so I had better make the best of it. But I confess it surprises me.

Table of Contents
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