First published in 2008. From the text: Anyone coming from Europe which so much interest centring in the Middle Ages has to customize the eyes to a new focus. It is as if he were to come from a well-kept garden to life in mid-oceans, stretching the eyes over a waste of waters. Everything is so old in the East; and being so old, is apt to be fragmentary. Civilizations come and go; nations have their rise, the of period pf prosperity and then they disappear...