I’m off to the countryside near Siena, Italy, and I will attempt to post from there.

I am psyched.

Henry James went to Siena and imagined the interior monologue of the houses there, “silvered by moonlight”: “We are very old and a trifle weary, but we were built strong and piled high, and we shall last for many an age. The present is cold and heedless, but we keep ourselves in heart by brooding over our store of memories and traditions. We are haunted houses in every creaking timber and aching stone.”