Within the church itself two things at once strike us: the unusual
popularity of it, and the friendliness. Why an intensely foreign
building of great size should exert this power of welcome I cannot say;
but the fact remains that S. Mark's, for all its Eastern domes and gold
and odd designs and billowy floor, does more to make a stranger and a
Protestant at home than any cathedral I know; and more people are also
under its sway than in any other. Most of them are sightseers, no doubt,
but they are sightseers from whom mere curiosity has fallen: they seem
to like to be there for its own sake.

The coming and going are incessant, both of worshippers and tourists,
units and companies. Guides, professional and amateur, bring in little
groups of travellers, and one hears their monotonous informative voices
above the foot-falls; for, as in all cathedrals, the prevailing sound is
of boots. In S. Mark's the boots make more noise than in most of the
others because of the unevenness of the pavement, which here and there
lures to the trot. One day as I sat in my favourite seat, high up in the
gallery, by a mosaic of S. Liberale, a great gathering of French
pilgrims entered, and, seating themselves in the right transept beneath
me, they disposed themselves to listen to an address by the French
priest who shepherded them. His nasal eloquence still rings in my ears.
A little while after I chanced to be at Padua, and there, in the church
of S. Anthony, I found him again, again intoning rhetoric.

S. Mark's is never empty, but when the rain falls--and in Venice rain
literally does fall--it is full. Then do the great leaden spouts over
the façade pour out their floods, while those in the courtyard of the
Doges' Palace expel an even fiercer torrent. But the city's recovery
from a deluge is instant.