I was, indeed, very sorry to leave Genoa, and to leave it, too, unseen. An event, however, too painful to allude to, compelled us to start at once; and we came on here to the little village from whence I write. A lovely spot it is,--sheltered from the open sea by a tall promontory, wooded with waving pines, whose feathery foliage is reflected in the calm sea beneath. A gentle curve of the strand leads to Chiavari, another town about six miles off; and behind us, landward, rise the great Apennines, several thousand feet in height,--grand, barren, volcanic-looking masses of wildest outline, and tinted with the colors of every mineral ore. On the very highest pinnacles of these are villages perched, and the tall tower of a church is seen to rise against the blue sky, at an elevation, one would fancy, untrodden by man. There is a beautiful distinctness in Italian landscape,--every detail is "picked out" sharply. The outline of every rock and cliff, of every tree, of every shrub, is clean and well defined. Light and shadow fall boldly, and even abruptly, on the eye; but--shall I own it?--I long for the mysterious distances, the cloud-shadows, the vague atmospheric tints of our Northern lands. I want those passing effects that seem to give a vitality to the picture, and make up something like a story of the scene. It is in these the mind revels as in a dreamland of its own. It is from these we conjure up so many mingled thoughts of the past, the present, and the coming time,--investing the real with the imaginary, and blending the ideal with the actual world. How naturally do all these thoughts lead us to that of Home! Happily for us, there is that in the religion of our hearts towards home that takes no account of the greater beauty of other lands. The loyalty we owe our own hearth defies seduction. Admire, glory in how you will the grandest scene the sun ever set upon, there is still a holy spot in your heart of hearts for some little humble locality,--a lonely glen,--a Highland tarn,--a rocky path beside some winding river, rich in its childish memories, redolent of the bright hours of sunny infancy,--and this you would not give for the most gorgeous landscapes that ever basked beneath Italian sky.