hor
near to the Mole. With an unclouded sun the atmosphere was hazy,
giving to the rocky walls of Sorrento, which were in the shade, a
tint of most beautiful blue. Naples with its living multitudes
lay in full sunshine, and glittered brilliantly with countless
tints.

and on April 1st:

With a cloudy sky, a bright but broken moonlight, the reflection
on the sea was infinitely beautiful.

At first, Italy, and especially Rome, felt strange to him, in
scenery, sky, contour, and colour. It was only by degrees that he
felt at home there.

He refers to this during his second visit to Rome in a notable
remark, which aptly expresses the faculty of apperception--the link
between us and the unfamiliar, which enables mental growth.

June 16th, 1787:

One remark more! Now for the first time do the trees, the rocks,
nay, Rome itself, grow dear to me; hitherto I have always felt
them as foreign, though, on the other hand, I took pleasure in
minor subjects having some resemblance to those I saw in youth.

On August 18th, 1787, he wrote:

Yesterday before sunrise I drove to Acqua Acetosa. Verily, one
might well lose his senses in contemplating the clearness, the
manifoldness, the dewy transparency, the heavenly hue of the
landscape, especially in the distance.

In October, when he heard of the engagement of a beautiful Milanese
lady with whom he had fallen in love:

I again turned me instantly to Nature, as a subject for
landscapes, a field I had been meanwhile neglecting, and
endeavoured to copy her in this respect with the utmost fidelity.
I was, however, more successful in mastering her with my eyes....
All the sensual fulness which that region offers us in rocks and
trees, in acclivities and declivities, in peaceful lakes and
lively streams, all this was grasped by my eye more
appreciatively, if possible, than ever before, and I could hardly
resent the wound which had to such degree sharpened my inward and
outward sense.

On leaving Rome, he wrote:

Three nights before, the full moon shone in the clearest heaven,
and the enchantment shed over the vast town, though often felt
before, was never felt so keenly as now. The great masses of
light, clear as in mild daylight, the contrast of deep shades,
occasionally relieved by reflexions dimly portraying details, all
this transported us as if into