




Transcribed from the 1887 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email
ccx074@coventry.ac.uk





THE DIARY OF A MAN OF FIFTY
by Henry James


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