By William Schwenk Gilbert

(_The Century Magazine_, September 1890)


I am a poor paralysed fellow who, for many years past, has been confined
to a bed or a sofa. For the last six years I have occupied a small room,
giving on to one of the side canals of Venice, and having no one about
me but a deaf old woman, who makes my bed and attends to my food; and
there I eke out a poor income of about thirty pounds a year by making
water-colour drawings of flowers and fruit (they are the cheapest models
in Venice), and these I send to a friend in London, who sells them to a
dealer for small sums. But, on the whole, I am happy and content.

It is necessary that I should describe the position of my room rather
minutely. Its only window is about five feet above the water of the
canal, and above it the house projects some six feet, and overhangs the
water, the projecting portion being supported by stout piles driven into
the bed of the canal. This arrangement has the disadvantage (among
others) of so limiting my upward view that I am unable to see more than
about ten feet of the height of the house immediately opposite to me,
although, by reaching as far out of the window as my infirmity will
permit, I can see for a considerable distance up and down the canal,
which does not exceed fifteen feet in width. But, although I can see but
little of the material house opposite, I can see its reflection upside
down in the canal, and I take a good deal of inverted interest in such
of its inhabitants as show themselves from time to time (always upside
down) on its balconies and at its windows.

When I first occupied my room, about six years ago, my attention was