wouldn't go ashore.

Why not, now he was here?

Well, he laid out to go ashore the next time he came to Venice.

And so, bless his honest soul, he lay three weeks at Venice with his
ship, after a voyage of two months, and he sailed away without ever
setting his foot on that enchanted ground.

I should have liked to stop some of those seafarers and ask them what
they thought of Genoa.

It must have been in the little streets--impassable for horses--that
the people sat and talked, as Heine fabled, in their doorways, and
touched knees with the people sitting and talking on the thresholds
of the opposite side. But we saw no gossipers there on our Sunday in
Genoa; and I think the domestic race of Heine's day no longer lives in
Genoa, for every body we saw on the streets was gayly dressed in the
idea of the last fashions, and was to be met chiefly in the public
promenades. The fashions were French; but here still lingers the
lovely phantom of the old national costume of Genoa, and snow-white
veils fluttered from many a dark head, and caressed many an olive
cheek. It is the kindest and charitablest of attirements, this white
veil, and, while decking beauty to the most perilous effect, befriends
and modifies age and ugliness.

The pleasure with which I look at the splendor of an Italian crowd in
winter is always touched with melancholy. I know that, at the time
of its noonday promenade, it has nothing but a cup of coffee in its