go back to them on any particular occasion for another look, it
is always a comfort to know that they are there, as the sense of
them on the spot is a part of the furniture of the mind--the
sense of them close at hand, behind every wall and under every
cover, like the inevitable reverse of a medal, of the side exposed to
the air that reflects, intensifies, completes the scene. In other
words, as it was the inevitable destiny of Venice to be painted,
and painted with passion, so the wide world of picture becomes,
as we live there, and however much we go about our affairs, the
constant habitation of our thoughts. The truth is, we are in it
so uninterruptedly, at home and abroad, that there is scarcely a
pressure upon us to seek it in one place more than in another.
Choose your standpoint at random and trust the picture to come to
you. This is manifestly why I have not, I find myself conscious,
said more about the features of the Canalazzo which occupy the
reach between the Salute and the position we have so obstinately
taken up. It is still there before us, however, and the
delightful little Palazzo Dario, intimately familiar to English
and American travellers, picks itself out in the foreshortened
brightness. The Dario is covered with the loveliest little marble
plates and sculptured circles; it is made up of exquisite pieces
--as if there had been only enough to make it small--so that it
looks, in its extreme antiquity, a good deal like a house of
cards that hold together by a tenure it would be fatal to touch.
An old Venetian house dies hard indeed, and I should add that
this delicate thing, with submission in every feature, continues
to resist the contact of generations of lodgers. It is let out in
floors (it used to be let as a whole) and in how many eager
hands--for it is in great requisition--under how many fleeting
dispensations have we not known and loved it? People are always