His opening essay on Venice, for instance, doesn't gloss over the sad conditions of life for the city's people: "Their habitations are decayed; their taxes heavy; their pockets light; their opportunities few."

His Roman essays, though, show the strongest touch of his own experiences, especially his long rides on horseback through the Campagna and his many walks through various neighborhoods in the city.

Few critics have put up much of a struggle against the charm of Italian Hours, the most loving of all James' travel writings.

Although there are inevitable stylistic variations from the earlier essays to the latest, the unevenness hardly spoils the reader's enjoyment and may even add some welcome variety.

[1] In The Golden Bowl Maggie relates a pretty image of Amerigo's: "He called it a 'serenade,' a low music that, outside one of the windows of the sleeping house, disturbed his rest at night... when finally, rising on tiptoe, he had looked out, he had recognised in the figure below with a mandolin, all duskily draped in her grace, the raised appealing eyes and the one irresistible voice of the ever-to-be-loved Italy."