E. M. Forster

Miss Bart­lett had not heard of Alessio Bal­dov­inetti, but she knew that Mr. Eager was no com­mon­place chap­lain. He was a mem­ber of the res­id­en­tial colony who had made Florence their home. He knew the people who never walked about with Baedekers, who had learnt to take a si­esta after lunch, who took drives the pen­sion tour­ists had never heard of, and saw by private in­flu­ence gal­ler­ies which were closed to them. Liv­ing in del­ic­ate se­clu­sion, some in fur­nished flats, oth­ers in Renais­sance vil­las on Fiesole’s slope, they read, wrote, stud­ied, and ex­changed ideas, thus at­tain­ing to that in­tim­ate know­ledge, or rather per­cep­tion, of Florence which is denied to all who carry in their pock­ets the coupons of Cook.

So it happened that from pat­ron­iz­ing ci­vil­ity he had slowly passed if not to pas­sion, at least to a pro­found un­eas­i­ness. Already at Rome he had hin­ted to her that they might be suit­able for each other.

The Piazza Si­gnoria is too stony to be bril­liant.

could not have be­lieved that stones, a Log­gia, a foun­tain, a palace tower, would have such sig­ni­fic­ance. For a mo­ment she un­der­stood the nature of ghosts.

The fault is mine: I left her un­chap­eroned.”

the ghoul­ish fash­ion in which re­spect­able people will nibble after blood.

But an Italian can never be ig­nored, least of all when he has a griev­ance.

It should be a most pathetic novel.”

He does but touch the sur­face of things.

Per­haps he can­not; cer­tainly he does not, or does so very sel­dom