TO HIS SISTER,

VENICE,
March 25, 1891.


Bewitching blue-eyed Venice sends her greetings to all of you. Oh, signori
and signorine, what an exquisite town this Venice is! Imagine a town
consisting of houses and churches such as you have never seen; an
intoxicating architecture, everything as graceful and light as the birdlike
gondola. Such houses and churches can only be built by people possessed of
immense artistic and musical taste and endowed with a lion-like
temperament. Now imagine in the streets and alleys, instead of pavement,
water; imagine that there is not one horse in the town; that instead of
cabmen you see gondoliers on their wonderful boats, light, delicate
long-beaked birds which scarcely seem to touch the water and tremble at the
tiniest wave. And all from earth to sky bathed in sunshine.

There are streets as broad as the Nevsky, and others in which you can bar
the way by stretching out your arms. The centre of the town is St. Mark's
Square with the celebrated cathedral of the same name. The cathedral is
magnificent, especially on the outside. Beside it is the Palace of the
Doges where Othello made his confession before the senators.

In short, there is not a spot that does not call up memories and touch the
heart. For instance, the little house where Desdemona lived makes an
impression that is difficult to shake off. The very best time in Venice is
the evening. First the stars; secondly, the long canals in which the lights
and stars are reflected; thirdly, gondolas, gondolas, and gondolas; when it