lad hills around Garda.... But, alas! at Verona
it rained as hard as ever, and we made our way from the railway station at
Venice, cowering in the coffin-like cabin of a damp and extremely draughty
gondola, while cold flurries of an Alpine-born wind swept across the Grand
Canal.

Sunshine is absolutely necessary to bring out the real beauty of Italy.
This is particularly the case in Venice, where light and life are required
to dispel the feeling of sadness so sure to creep over one amid the signs
of long-past grandeur and decaying magnificence.

On a grey and wintry day one is chiefly impressed by the dank chilliness
of the palaces on the Grand Canal, whose feet lie lapped in slimy water;
the lovely tracery of whose windows shows ragged and broken, whose stately
guest-chambers are in the sordid occupation of the dealer in false
antiques, and whose motto might be "Ichabod," for their glory has departed.

It is five-and-twenty years since I was last in Venice, and I can truly
say that it has not improved in that long time. The loss of the great
Campanile of St. Mark is not compensated for by the gain of the penny
steamer which frets and fusses its prosaic way along the Grand Canal, or
blurts its noisome smoke in the very face of the Palace of the Doges.

Well! A steady downpour is dispiriting at any time, excepting when one is
snugly at home with plenty to do, and it is particularly so to the unlucky
traveller who has to live through half-a-dozen long hours intervening
between arrival at and departure from Venice on a cold, dull, wintry
afternoon.

The sombre gondola writhed its sinuous course and deposited us all forlorn
in the near neighbourhood of the Piazza San Marco. Splashing our way
across, and pushing through the crowd of greedy fat pigeons, we entered
the world-famous church. I know my Ruskin, and I feel that I should be
lost in wonder and admiration--I am not.

The gloom--rich golden gloom if you will--of the interior oppresses me; it
is cavernous. A service is being held in one of the transepts, and the
congregation seems noisier and less devout than I could have believed
possible. My thoughts fly far to where, on its solitary hill, the noble
pile of Chartres soars majestic, its heaven-piercing spires dominating the
wide plain of La Beauce. In fancy I enter by the splendid north door and
find myself in the pillared dimness softly lighted by the great window in
the west. This seems to me to be the greatest