Preparing for Rome, reading of the “art critic” Henry T Tuckerman in 1836 on the Roman Forum: of the “comparative worthlessness of the outward scene”, as it reminds us that “it is the acts themselves, with all their beautiful philosophy, which alone have hollowed these portions of the earth”. I am reminded of my insight in Jerusalem now many years ago:
Silence stones, awaiting words, passed on from long ago.
Which itself reminds me of my in Tübingen well-prepared, excited “tramping” in the Peloponnese, where, novice and naïve as I was, it was all so much less than I had imagined.
Stephen Lapeyrouse . . . Notes Dropped Along the Way 