canals have a horrible smell, and the everlasting Piazza, where
you have looked repeatedly at every article in every shop-window
and found them all rubbish, where the young Venetians who sell
bead bracelets and "panoramas" are perpetually thrusting their
wares at you, where the same tightly-buttoned officers are for
ever sucking the same black weeds, at the same empty tables, in
front of the same cafes--the Piazza, as I say, has resolved
itself into a magnificent tread-mill. This is the state of mind
of those shallow inquirers who find Venice all very well for a
week; and if in such a state of mind you take your departure you
act with fatal rashness. The loss is your own, moreover; it is
not--with all deference to your personal attractions--that of
your companions who remain behind; for though there are some
disagreeable things in Venice there is nothing so disagreeable as
the visitors. The conditions are peculiar, but your intolerance
of them evaporates before it has had time to become a prejudice.
When you have called for the bill to go, pay it and remain, and
you will find on the morrow that you are deeply attached to
Venice. It is by living there from day to day that you feel the
fulness of her charm; that you invite her exquisite influence to
sink into your spirit. The creature varies like a nervous woman,
whom you know only when you know all the aspects of her beauty.
She has high spirits or low, she is pale or red, grey or pink,
cold or warm, fresh or wan, according to the weather or the hour.
She is always interesting and almost always sad; but she has a
thousand occasional graces and is always liable to happy
accidents. You become extraordinarily fond of these things; you
count upon them; they make part of your life. Tenderly fond you
become; there is something indefinable in those depths of
personal acquaintance that gradually establish themselves. The