join on easily to all you meet, than
by pursuing some one abstruse study, whether it be mathematics or
philosophy."

"But it seems such a small thing to spend one's mind in learning odds and
ends of other people's hobbies."

"But I would have a hobby of my own, and do some steady stiff reading,
only, as you are going to be a woman, and not a student, I would choose
reading that linked me to as many as possible of other people's interests.
How dull and shy poor little Miss Smith was yesterday, till I found that
she knew Venice as well as I did. After that she quite enjoyed her visit."

"Yes, but I could not have talked about Italy. I never have a chance of
going abroad."

"You do not know when you may go, and if you went to-morrow it would be a
case of 'No Eyes.' You do not know an interesting piece of architecture
when you see it, you would not know what pictures to look for, you would
not know the history of the places you went to, and, in short, you would
miss nine-tenths of the best points, for want of knowing they were there."

"Yes; I might read up countries, but it is so unlikely that I should ever
see them, that it does not seem much use to read up for nothing."

"Well, supposing that you did not go, but that you had read books on
Italian Art, and made out a list of the pictures you wanted to see at each
great town--Florence, Venice, Rome, Siena--and knew about each painter,
his history, his style, and photographs of his works, and copied out under
each picture what good critics had said of it, or at least put a reference
to the book where it was mentioned (_e.g._ Kingsley's description of
Bellini's Doge; Browning on Fra Lippo Lippi's Coronation of the Virgin;
Ruskin's best descriptions); and if you looked out all the famous men of
each town, and knew their history, and what parts of the town were sacred
to them; if you studied the buildings of each town, looked up its
architecture, and tried to draw it from photographs and illustrations, and
then hunted out all the poetry and novels about each place, and drew out a
sketch of its history, marking where the local history of the town
dovetailed into larger European interests, and specially where it touched
England--I think, after this, you would enjoy meeting any one from Italy
almost as much as if you had been there, and you would not feel you had
read up for nothing. I should take a fresh country every year, and make
believe that you were going to it next s