Italy

We highlighted the magic word Italia in months past, but we couldn't resist this additional literary example:

This Italy of yours, on whose threshold I stand, is the home of history, of beauty, of the arts—of all that makes life splendid and sweet. Italy, for us dull strangers, is a magic word. We cross ourselves when we pronounce it. We are brought up to think that when we have earned leisure and rest—at some bright hour, when fortune smiles—we may go forth and cross oceans and mountains and see on Italian soil the primal substance—the Platonic ‘idea’—of our consoling dreams and our richest fancies. ... I begin to behold the promise of my dreams. It’s Italy. ... The air has a perfume; everything that enters my soul, at every sense, is a suggestion, a promise, a performance.
—Henry James, Travelling Companions (1870)