PITHY QUOTES FROM PAST MASTERS

The apparent deadness of the Campagna, during the season when travellers cross it, the scanty population, whose habits and manners savour an older world, the wall of ruin that surrounds every thing that is new and fresh in Rome, force the thoughts back upon the past, and veil the present, as the future, from our eyes.
Women's Travel Writings in Italy, Volume 5, Maria Graham; Three Months Passed in the Mountains East of Rome (1820)