hear all about us. I wanted to write to you, indeed, from Venice, where
we stayed a month, and much the same reason made me leave it undone, as
we were making and unmaking plans the whole time, and we didn't know
till the last few hours, for instance, whether or not we should go to
Milan. Venice is quite exquisite; it wrapt me round with a spell at
first sight, and I longed to live and die there--never to go away. The
gondolas, and the glory they swim through, and the silence of the
population, drifted over one's head across the bridges, and the
fantastic architecture and the coffee-drinking and music in the Piazza
San Marco, everything fitted into my lazy, idle nature and weakness of
body, as if I had been born to the manner of it and to no other. Do you
know I expected in Venice a dreary sort of desolation? Whereas there was
nothing melancholy at all, only a soothing, lulling, rocking atmosphere
which if Armida had lived in a city rather than in a garden would have
suited her purpose. Indeed Taglioni seems to be resting her feet from
dancing, there, with a peculiar zest, inasmuch as she has bought three
or four of the most beautiful palaces. How could she do better? And one
or two ex-kings and queens (of the more vulgar royalties) have wrapt
themselves round with those shining waters to forget the purple--or
dream of it, as the case may be. Robert and I led a true Venetian life,
I assure you; we 'swam in gondolas' to the Lido and everywhere else, we
went to a festa at Chioggia in the steamer (frightening Wilson by being
kept out by the wind till two o'clock in the morning), we went to the
opera and the play (at a shilling each, or not as much!), and we took
coffee every evening on St. Mark's Piazza, to music and the stars.
Altogether it would have been perfect, only what's perfect in the world?
While I grew fat, Wilson grew thin, and Robert could not sleep at
nights. The air was too relaxing or soft or something for them both, and
poor Wilson declares that another month of Venice would have killed her
outright. Certainly she looked dreadfully ill and could eat nothing. So