and then make some public manifestation of gayety. But they detest Venice
as a place of residence, being naturally averse to living in the midst of
a people who shun them like a pestilence. Other foreigners, as I said, are
obliged to take sides for or against the Venetians, and it is amusing
enough to find the few English residents divided into Austriacanti and
Italianissimi. [Footnote: Austriacanti are people of Austrian politics,
though not of Austrian birth. Italianissimi are those who favor union with
Italy at any cost.]

Even the consuls of the different nations, who are in every way bound to
neutrality and indifference, are popularly reputed to be of one party or
the other, and my predecessor, whose unhappy knowledge of German threw him
on his arrival among people of that race, was always regarded as the enemy
of Venetian freedom, though I believe his principles were of the most
vivid republican tint in the United States.

The present situation has now endured five years, with only slight
modifications by time, and only faint murmurs from some of the more
impatient, that _bisogna, una volta o l'altra, romper il chiodo_,
(sooner or later the nail must be broken.) As the Venetians are a people
of indomitable perseverance, long schooled to obstinacy by oppression, I
suppose they will hold out till their union with the kingdom of Italy.
They can do nothing of themselves, but they seem content to wait forever
in their present gloom. How deeply their attitude affects their national
character I shall inquire hereafter, when I come to look somewhat more
closely at the spirit of their demonstration.

For the present, it is certain that the discontent of the people has its
peculiar effect upon the city as the stranger sees its life, casting a
glamour over it all, making it more and more ghostly and sad, and giving