terminus.

But why do I put myself to the trouble of writing this when it has all
been done for me by an earlier hand? In the most popular of the little
guide-books to Venice--sold at all the shops for a franc and twenty
centimes, and published in German, English, and, I think, French, as
well as the original Italian--the impact of Venice on the traveller by
rail is done with real feeling and eloquence, and with a curious
intensity only possible when an Italian author chooses an Italian
translator to act as intermediary between himself and the English
reader. The author is Signor A. Carlo, and the translator, whose
independence, in a city which swarms with Anglo-Saxon visitors and even
residents, in refusing to make use of their services in revising his
English, cannot be too much admired, is Signor G. Sarri.

Here is the opening flight of these Two Gentlemen of Venice: "The
traveller, compelled by a monotone railway-carriage, to look for hours
at the endless stretching of the beautifull and sad Venetian plain,
feels getting wear, [? near] this divine Queen of the Seas, whom so many
artists, painters and poets have exalted in every time and every way;
feels, I say, that something new, something unexpected is really about
to happen: something that will surely leave a deep mark on his
imagination, and last through all his life. I mean that peculiar
radiation of impulsive energy issueing from anything really great,
vibrating and palpitating from afar, fitting the soul to emotion or
enthusiasm...."

Yesterday, or even this morning, in Padua, Verona, Milan, Chioggia, or
wherever it was, whips were cracking, hoofs clattering, motor horns
booming, wheels endangering your life. Farewell now to all!--there is