1.
Romney Literary Society
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The Romney Literary Society existed from January 30,1819, to February 15,1886, in Romney, West Virginia. Established as the Polemic Society of Romney, it became the first organization of its kind in the state of West Virginia. The society was founded by nine prominent men of Romney with the objectives of advancing literature and science, purchasing and maintaining a library, the society debated an extensive range of scientific and social topics, often violating its own rules which banned religious and political subjects. The societys library began in 1819 with the acquisition of two books, by 1861, it had grown to contain approximately 3,000 volumes on subjects such as literature, science, history, and art. The organization also sought to establish an institution for the education of the youth of the community. In 1846, the society constructed a building housed the Romney Classical Institute and its library. The institute was administered by noted Presbyterian Reverend William Henry Foote, following a dispute with the society, Foote founded a rival school in Romney, known as the Potomac Seminary, in 1850. The Romney Literary Society and the Romney Classical Institute continued to grow in influence until the onset of the American Civil War in 1861. The contents of the library were plundered by Union Army forces. Reorganized in 1869, the society took a role in Romneys civil development during Reconstruction. Between 1869 and 1870, it completed construction of Literary Hall, the organization used its influence to secure the West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and Blind for the town of Romney, and offered the school its former Romney Classical Institute campus. The schools opened on September 29,1870, interest in the society waned during its final years, and its last recorded meeting was held in 1886. The Romney Literary Society was organized on January 30,1819, by nine prominent men of Romney in the office of Dr. John Temple, a reputable physician in the community. With its establishment, the Romney Literary Society became the first organization of its kind in the state of West Virginia. The nine men at the societys first meeting were Thomas Blair, David Gibson, James P. Jack, Samuel Kercheval, Jr. Nathaniel Kuykendall, Charles T. Magill, James M. Stephens, John Temple, and William C. According to historian Hu Maxwell, these men elected Kuykendall as chairman, on February 4,1819, the committee delivered its draft of the constitution and the society adopted the document, which provided that the organization should be known as the Polemic Society of Romney. The societys constitution also specified that the officers should consist of a president, secretary, the funds collected were to cover the societys operating costs, and the remaining funds were to be used in purchasing books for the library. Under the constitution, the meetings were to be held weekly
2.
Romney, West Virginia
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Romney is a city in and the county seat of Hampshire County, West Virginia, USA. The population was 1,940 at the 2000 census, while the covered by the citys ZIP code had a population of 5,873. The population was 1,848 at the 2010 census, Originally settled in 1725 by hunters and traders, Romney was known as Pearsalls Flats and was the site of the French and Indian War stockade Fort Pearsall. It is also home to the West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and Blind, Romney is located at 39°20′42″N 78°45′25″W. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 0.96 square miles. The climate in this area is characterized by hot, humid summers, according to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Romney has a humid continental climate, abbreviated Cfa on climate maps. As of the census of 2010, there were 1,848 people,843 households, the population density was 1,925.0 inhabitants per square mile. There were 967 housing units at a density of 1,007.3 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 95. 8% White,2. 7% African American,0. 2% Native American,0. 1% Asian,0. 1% from other races, hispanic or Latino of any race were 1. 4% of the population. 46. 5% of all households were made up of individuals and 26. 2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older, the average household size was 2.01 and the average family size was 2.83. The median age in the city was 41.9 years. 23. 6% of residents were under the age of 18,9. 4% were between the ages of 18 and 24,20. 3% were from 25 to 44, 23% were from 45 to 64, and 23. 6% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 44. 1% male and 55. 9% female, as of the census of 2000, there were 1,940 people,884 households, and 454 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,114.3 people per square mile, there were 974 housing units at an average density of 1,061.5 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 96. 91% White,1. 91% African American,0. 05% Native American,0. 52% Asian,0. 21% from other races, hispanic or Latino of any race were 0. 67% of the population. 44. 8% of all households were made up of individuals and 26. 8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older, the average household size was 1.97 and the average family size was 2.72. In the city, the population was out with 25. 2% under the age of 18,7. 4% from 18 to 24,20. 1% from 25 to 44,21. 3% from 45 to 64. The median age was 42 years, for every 100 females there were 76.2 males
3.
John Keats
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John Keats was an English Romantic poet. He had a significant influence on a range of poets. Jorge Luis Borges stated that his first encounter with Keatss work was the most significant literary experience of his life, the poetry of Keats is characterised by sensual imagery, most notably in the series of odes. This is typical of poets, as they aimed to accentuate extreme emotion through the emphasis of natural imagery. Today his poems and letters are some of the most popular, John Keats was born in Moorgate, London, on 31 October 1795 to Thomas Keats and his wife, born Frances Jennings. There is no evidence of his exact birthplace. Although Keats and his family seem to have marked his birthday on 29 October and he was the eldest of four surviving children, his younger siblings were George, Thomas, and Frances Mary Fanny who eventually married Spanish author Valentín Llanos Gutiérrez. Another son was lost in infancy and his father first worked as a hostler at the stables attached to the Swan and Hoop Inn, an establishment he later managed, and where the growing family lived for some years. Keats believed that he was born at the inn, a birthplace of humble origins, the Globe pub now occupies the site, a few yards from the modern-day Moorgate station. He was baptised at St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate, and sent to a dame school as a child. His parents were unable to afford Eton or Harrow, so in the summer of 1803, he was sent to board at John Clarkes school in Enfield, the small school had a liberal outlook and a progressive curriculum more modern than the larger, more prestigious schools. In the family atmosphere at Clarkes, Keats developed an interest in classics and history, the headmasters son, Charles Cowden Clarke, also became an important mentor and friend, introducing Keats to Renaissance literature, including Tasso, Spenser, and Chapmans translations. The young Keats was described by his friend Edward Holmes as a character, always in extremes, given to indolence. However, at 13 he began focusing his energy on reading and study, in April 1804, when Keats was eight, his father died. The cause of death was a fracture, suffered when he fell from his horse while returning from a visit to Keats. Frances remarried two months later, but left her new husband soon afterwards, and the four went to live with their grandmother, Alice Jennings. In March 1810 when Keats was 14, his mother died of tuberculosis and she appointed two guardians, Richard Abbey and John Sandell, to take care of them. That autumn, Keats left Clarkes school to apprentice with Thomas Hammond, a surgeon and apothecary who was a neighbour, Keats lodged in the attic above the surgery at 7 Church Street until 1813
4.
Guy's Hospital
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Guys Hospital is a large NHS hospital in the borough of Southwark in central London. It is part of Guys and St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust and one of the institutions that comprise the Kings Health Partners and it is a large teaching hospital and is, with St Thomas Hospital and Kings College Hospital, the location of Kings College London School of Medicine. The Tower Wing is the second tallest hospital building, standing at 148.65 metres with 34 floors. The hospital was founded in 1721 by Thomas Guy, a publisher of unlicensed Bibles who had made a fortune in the South Sea Bubble and it was originally established as a hospital to treat incurables discharged from St Thomas Hospital. Guy had been a Governor and benefactor of St Thomas and his fellow Governors supported his intention by granting the south-side of St Thomas Street for a rent for 999 years. Guy is interred in the crypt of the Chapel of his foundation, Guys has expanded over the centuries. The original buildings formed a courtyard facing St Thomas Street, comprising the hall on the east side, two inner quadrangles were divided by a cloister which was later restyled and dedicated to the hospitals members who fell in World War I. The east side comprised the wards and the counting house with the governors Burfoot Court Room. The north-side quadrangle is dominated by a statue of Lord Nuffield who was the chairman of governors for many years and these original parts of the hospital are now administrative and social accommodation. Despite substantial bomb damage during World War II, the original 18th century chapel remains intact including the tomb of Thomas Guy with a sculpture by John Bacon. A bequest of £200,000 by William Hunt in 1829, one of the largest charitable bequests in England in historic terms, Hunts name was given to the southern expansion of the hospital buildings. These were replaced c.2000 by new buildings for Kings College. In 1974, the added the 34-storey Guys Tower and 29-storey Guys House. At 148.65 metres high, Guys Tower regained its tallest hospital building in the status in 2014 and is currently the 21st tallest building in London. It was designed by Watkins Gray, over 13,650 staff work in Guys Hospital and St Thomas Hospital. They are two of the oldest teaching hospitals, and they are situated right in the heart of the capital, one of the services that the trust provides is dental care, looking after over 120,000 patients a year. The site consists of 19 distinct, but interconnected, buildings with functions including public medical services, teaching, research, collectively the buildings are known by local students as the squirrel due to the buildings strange silhouette. It was for six years surpassed by the Phase 3 Building of the Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital in Happy Valley, in May 2014 it regained its title following the completion of extensive repair and improvement works
5.
Hampstead Heath
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Hampstead Heath is a large, ancient London park, covering 320 hectares. This grassy public space sits astride a sandy ridge, one of the highest points in London, running from Hampstead to Highgate, which rests on a band of London Clay. The heath is rambling and hilly, embracing ponds, recent and ancient woodlands, a lido, playgrounds, and a training track, the south-east part of the heath is Parliament Hill, from which the view over London is protected by law. Running along its perimeter are a chain of ponds – including three open-air public swimming pools – which were originally reservoirs for drinking water from the River Fleet. The heath is a Site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature Conservation, lakeside concerts are held there in summer. The heath first entered the books in 986 when Ethelred the Unready granted one of his servants five hides of land at Hemstede. This same land is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as held by the monastery of St. Peters at Westminster Abbey. Over time, plots of land in the manor were sold off for building, particularly in the early 19th century, the main part of the heath was acquired for the people by the Metropolitan Board of Works. Parliament Hill was purchased for the public for £300,000, Golders Hill was added in 1898 and Kenwood House and grounds were added in 1928. From 1808 to 1814 Hampstead Heath hosted a station in the shutter telegraph chain which connected the Admiralty in London to its ships in the port of Great Yarmouth. The City of London Corporation has managed the heath since 1989, before that it was managed by the GLC and before that by the London County Council. In 2009, the City of London proposed to upgrade a footpath across the heath into a service-road, the proposal met with protests from local residents and celebrities, and did not proceed. The heath sits astride a sandy ridge that rests on a band of London clay and it runs from east to west, its highest point being 134 metres. As the sand was easily penetrated by rainwater which was held by the clay. Hampstead Heath contains the largest single area of land in Greater London. Buses serve several roads around the heath, the heaths 320 hectares include a number of distinct areas. Hampstead Heath is an important refuge for wildlife, including snakes, foxes, rabbits, slow worms, squirrels. Common kingfishers, jackdaws, pipistrelles and Daubentons bats are seen over the ponds, some introduced species have also thrived at the site, for example muntjac deer, terrapins and ring-necked parakeets
6.
La Belle Dame sans Merci
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La Belle Dame sans Merci is a ballad written by the English poet John Keats. It exists in two versions, with differences between them. The original was written by Keats in 1819 and he used the title of the 15th-century La Belle Dame sans Mercy by Alain Chartier, though the plots of the two poems are different. The poem is considered an English classic, stereotypical of other of Keats works and it avoids simplicity of interpretation despite simplicity of structure. At only a short twelve stanzas, of four lines each, with a simple ABCB rhyme scheme, the poem is nonetheless full of enigmas. O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering, the sedge has withered from the lake, And no birds sing. O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, So haggard and so woe-begone, the squirrel’s granary is full, And the harvest’s done. I see a lily on thy brow, With anguish moist and fever-dew, I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful, a fairy’s child, Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild. She found me roots of sweet, And honey wild. She took me to her Elfin grot, And there she wept and sighed full sore, and there she lullèd me asleep, And there I dreamed—Ah. Woe betide. — The latest dream I ever dreamt On the cold hill side, and this is why I sojourn here, Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge is withered from the lake, And no birds sing. La Belle Dame sans Merci is a popular form given an artistic sheen by the Romantic poets, keatss economical manner of telling a story in La Belle Dame sans Merci is the direct opposite of his lavish manner in The Eve of St. Agnes. Part of the fascination exerted by the poem comes from Keats use of understatement, Keats sets his simple story of love and death in a bleak wintry landscape that is appropriate to it, The sedge has witherd from the lake / And no birds sing. Keats relates the condition of the trees and surroundings with condition of the knight who is also broken, in keeping with the ballad tradition, Keats does not identify his questioner, or the knight, or the destructively beautiful lady. What Keats does not include in his poem contributes as much to it in arousing the readers imagination as what he puts into it. La belle dame sans merci, the lady without pity, is a femme fatale. She destroys because it is her nature to destroy, Keats could have found patterns for his faerys child in folk mythology, classical literature, Renaissance poetry, or the medieval ballad. With a few skillful touches, he creates a woman who is at once beautiful, erotically attractive, fascinating, some readers see the poem as Keats personal rebellion against the pains of love
7.
To Autumn
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To Autumn is a poem by English Romantic poet John Keats. The work was composed on 19 September 1819 and published in 1820 in a volume of Keatss poetry that included Lamia, to Autumn is the final work in a group of poems known as Keatss 1819 odes. Although personal problems left him time to devote to poetry in 1819. The work marks the end of his career, as he needed to earn money. A little over a following the publication of To Autumn. The poem has three eleven-line stanzas which describe a progression through the season, from the maturation of the crops to the harvest. The imagery is richly achieved through the personification of Autumn, and it has parallels in the work of English landscape artists, with Keats himself describing the fields of stubble that he saw on his walk as being like that in a painting. One of the most anthologised English lyric poems, To Autumn has been regarded by critics as one of the most perfect poems in the English language. During the spring of 1819, Keats wrote many of his odes, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode on Indolence, Ode on Melancholy, Ode to a Nightingale. In his free time he read works as varied as Robert Burtons Anatomy of Melancholy, Thomas Chattertons poetry. Despite these distractions, on 19 September 1819 he found time to write To Autumn, the poem marks the final moment of his career as a poet. No longer able to afford to devote his time to the composition of poems, Keatss declining health and personal responsibilities also raised obstacles to his continuing poetic efforts. On 19 September 1819, Keats walked near Winchester along the River Itchen, not everything on Keatss mind at the time was bright, the poet knew in September that he would have to finally abandon Hyperion. Thus, in the letter that he wrote to Reynolds, Keats also included a note saying that he abandoned his long poem. Keats did not send To Autumn to Reynolds, but did include the poem within a letter to Richard Woodhouse, Keatss publisher and friend, and dated it on the same day. The poem was revised and included in Keatss 1820 collection of poetry titled Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store. Where are the songs of Spring, to Autumn describes, in its three stanzas, three different aspects of the season, its fruitfulness, its labour and its ultimate decline. Through the stanzas there is a progression from early autumn to mid autumn, parallel to this, the poem depicts the day turning from morning to afternoon and into dusk
8.
Winchester
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Winchester is a city and the county town of Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a government district. It is situated 61 miles south-west of London and 13.6 miles from Southampton, at the time of the 2011 Census, Winchester had a population of 45,184. The wider City of Winchester district which includes such as Alresford. Winchester developed from the Roman town of Venta Belgarum, which in turn developed from an Iron Age oppidum. Winchesters major landmark is Winchester Cathedral, one of the largest cathedrals in Europe, with the distinction of having the longest nave and overall length of all Gothic cathedrals in Europe. The city is home to the University of Winchester and Winchester College, the area around Winchester has been inhabited since prehistoric times, with three Iron Age hillforts, Orams Arbour, St. Catherines Hill, and Worthy Down all in the nearby vicinity. In the Late Iron Age, an urban settlement type developed, known as an oppidum. It was overrun by the confederation of Gaulish tribes known as the Belgae sometime during the first century BCE and it seems to have been known as Wentā or Venta, from the Brittonic for town or meeting place. After the Roman conquest of Britain, the settlement served as the capital of the Belgae and was distinguished as Venta Belgarum, Venta of the Belgae. Although in the years of the Roman province it was of subsidiary importance to Silchester and Chichester. At the beginning of the century, Winchester was given protective stone walls. At around this time the city covered an area of 144 acres, there was a limited suburban area outside the walls. Like many other Roman towns however, Winchester began to decline in the fourth century. Ford identifies the community as the Cair Guinntguic listed by Nennius among the 28 cities of Britain in his History of the Britains, amid the Saxon invasions of Britain, cemeteries dating to the 6th and 7th centuries suggest a revival of settlement. The city became known as Wintan-ceastre in Old English, in 648, King Cenwalh of Wessex erected the Church of SS Peter and Paul, later known as the Old Minster. This became a cathedral in the 660s when the West Saxon bishopric was transferred from Dorchester-on-Thames, the citys first mint appears to date from this period. In the early tenth century there were two new establishments, the convent of Nunnaminster, founded by Alfreds widow Ealhswith
9.
Gothic fiction
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Gothic fiction, which is largely known by the subgenre of Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature and film that combines fiction and horror, death, and at times romance. Its origin is attributed to English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, the effect of Gothic fiction feeds on a pleasing sort of terror, an extension of Romantic literary pleasures that were relatively new at the time of Walpoles novel. It originated in England in the half of the 18th century and had much success in the 19th, as witnessed by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Another well known novel in this genre, dating from the late Victorian era, is Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the name Gothic refers to the -medieval buildings, emulating Gothic architecture, in which many of these stories take place. This extreme form of romanticism was very popular in England and Germany, the English Gothic novel also led to new novel types such as the German Schauerroman and the French Georgia. The novel usually regarded as the first Gothic novel is Horace Walpoles The Castle of Otranto, Horace Walpoles declared aim was to combine elements of the medieval romance, which he deemed too fanciful, and the modern novel, which he considered to be too confined to strict realism. Walpole published the first edition disguised as a romance from Italy discovered and republished by a fictitious translator. When Walpole admitted to his authorship in the edition, its originally favourable reception by literary reviewers changed into rejection. A romance with elements, and moreover void of didactical intention, was considered a setback. Walpoles forgery, together with the blend of history and fiction, contravened the principles of the Enlightenment and associated the Gothic novel with fake documentation. Clara Reeve, best known for her work The Old English Baron, set out to take Walpoles plot, the question now arose whether supernatural events that were not as evidently absurd as Walpoles would not lead the simpler minds to believe them possible. Ann Radcliffe developed the technique of the supernatural in which every seemingly supernatural intrusion is eventually traced back to natural causes. Among other elements, Ann Radcliffe introduced the figure of the Gothic villain. Radcliffes novels, above all The Mysteries of Udolpho, were best-sellers, however, along with most novels at the time, they were looked down upon by many well-educated people as sensationalist nonsense. Radcliffe also provided an aesthetic for the genre in an influential article On the Supernatural in Poetry, Romantic literary movements developed in continental Europe concurrent with the development of the Gothic novel. The roman noir appeared in France, by writers as François Guillaume Ducray-Duminil, Baculard dArnaud. In Germany, the Schauerroman gained traction with writers as Friedrich Schiller, with novels like The Ghost-Seer and these works were often more horrific and violent than the English Gothic novel. Matthew Gregory Lewiss lurid tale of debauchery, black magic
10.
Lord Byron
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George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, FRS, commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet, peer, politician, and a leading figure in the Romantic movement. Among his best-known works are the narrative poems, Don Juan and Childe Harolds Pilgrimage. Byron is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential and he travelled extensively across Europe, especially in Italy, where he lived for seven years with the struggling poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Later in his life, Byron joined the Greek War of Independence fighting the Ottoman Empire. He died in 1824 at the age of 36 from a fever contracted while in Missolonghi, ethel Colburn Mayne states that George Gordon Byron was born on 22 January 1788 in a house on 24 Holles Street in London. However, Robert Charles Dallas in his Recollections states that Byron was born in Dover and he was the son of Captain John Mad Jack Byron and his second wife, the former Catherine Gordon, a descendant of Cardinal Beaton and heiress of the Gight estate in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Byrons father had seduced the married Marchioness of Carmarthen and, after she divorced her husband. His treatment of her was described as brutal and vicious, in order to claim his second wifes estate in Scotland, Byrons father took the additional surname Gordon, becoming John Byron Gordon, and he was occasionally styled John Byron Gordon of Gight. Byron himself used this surname for a time and was registered at school in Aberdeen as George Byron Gordon, at the age of 10, he inherited the English Barony of Byron of Rochdale, becoming Lord Byron, and eventually dropped the double surname. Byrons paternal grandparents were Vice-Admiral the Hon. John Foulweather Jack Byron, vice Admiral John Byron had circumnavigated the globe, and was the younger brother of the 5th Baron Byron, known as the Wicked Lord. He was christened, at St Marylebone Parish Church, George Gordon Byron after his maternal grandfather George Gordon of Gight, a descendant of James I of Scotland, Mad Jack Byron married his second wife for the same reason that he married his first, her fortune. In a move to avoid his creditors, Catherine accompanied her husband to France in 1786. He was born on 22 January in lodgings at Holles Street in London, Catherine moved back to Aberdeenshire in 1790, where Byron spent his childhood. His father soon joined them in their lodgings in Queen Street, Catherine regularly experienced mood swings and bouts of melancholy, which could be partly explained by her husbands continuing to borrow money from her. As a result, she fell even further into debt to support his demands and it was one of these importunate loans that allowed him to travel to Valenciennes, France, where he died in 1791. When Byrons great-uncle, the wicked Lord Byron, died on 21 May 1798, described as a woman without judgment or self-command, Catherine either spoiled and indulged her son or vexed him with her capricious stubbornness. Her drinking disgusted him, and he often mocked her for being short and corpulent and she once retaliated and, in a fit of temper, referred to him as a lame brat. Langley-Moore questions the Galt claim that she over-indulged in alcohol, upon the death of Byrons mother-in-law Judith Noel, the Hon
11.
Washington Irving
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Washington Irving was an American short story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Irving served as the U. S. ambassador to Spain from 1842 to 1846. He made his debut in 1802 with a series of observational letters to the Morning Chronicle. After moving to England for the business in 1815, he achieved international fame with the publication of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon. He continued to publish regularly—and almost always successfully—throughout his life, and just eight months before his death, Irving was also admired by some European writers, including Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Thomas Campbell, Francis Jeffrey, and Charles Dickens. Washington Irvings parents were William Irving, Sr. originally of Quholm, Shapinsay, Orkney and they married in 1761 while William was serving as a petty officer in the British Navy. They had eleven children, eight of whom survived to adulthood and their first two sons, each named William, died in infancy, as did their fourth child, John. Their surviving children were, William, Jr. Ann, Peter, Catherine, Ebenezer, John Treat, Sarah, and Washington. At age six, with the help of a nanny, Irving met his namesake, the president blessed young Irving, an encounter Irving later commemorated in a small watercolor painting, which still hangs in his home today. The Irvings lived at 131 William Street at the time of Washington Irvings birth, the family later moved across the street to 128 William St. An uninterested student, Irving preferred adventure stories and drama and and it was in Tarrytown that Irving became familiar with the nearby town of Sleepy Hollow, with its quaint Dutch customs and local ghost stories. Irving made several trips up the Hudson as a teenager, including an extended visit to Johnstown, New York, where he passed through the Catskill mountain region. F all the scenery of the Hudson, Irving wrote later, the 19-year-old Irving began writing letters to the New York Morning Chronicle in 1802, submitting commentaries on the citys social and theater scene under the name of Jonathan Oldstyle. The name, which evoked the writers Federalist leanings, was the first of many pseudonyms Irving would employ throughout his career. The letters brought Irving some early fame and moderate notoriety, concerned for his health, Irvings brothers financed an extended tour of Europe from 1804 to 1806. Irving bypassed most of the sites and locations considered essential for the development of an upwardly mobile young man, William wrote that, though he was pleased his brothers health was improving, he did not like the choice to gallop through Italy. Leaving Florence on your left and Venice on your right, instead, Irving honed the social and conversational skills that would later make him one of the worlds most in-demand guests. I endeavor to take things as they come with cheerfulness, Irving wrote, while visiting Rome in 1805, Irving struck up a friendship with the American painter Washington Allston, and nearly allowed himself to be persuaded into following Allston into a career as a painter
