“At last I can speak out, and greet my friends with good humour. May they pardon my secrecy, and what has been, as it were, a subterranean journey hither. For scarcely to myself did I venture to say whither I was hurrying. Even on the road I often had my fears; and it was only as I passed under the Porta del Popolo that I felt certain of reaching Rome.

And now let me also say that a thousand times, ay, at all times, do I think of you in the neighbourhood of these objects which I never believed I should visit alone. It was only when I saw every one bound, body and soul, to the north, and all longing for those countries utterly extinct among them, that I resolved to undertake the long, solitary journey, and to seek that centre toward which I was attracted by an irresistible impulse. Indeed, for the few last years it had become with me a kind of disease, which could only be cured by the sight and presence of the absent object. Now, at length, I may venture to confess the truth. It reached at last such a height that I durst not look at a Latin book, or even an engraving of Italian scenery. The craving to see this country was over-ripe. Now it is satisfied… “(Goethe 1786)