in's always did interest
females and males too, no matter whether the bride wuz formed out of
dust or nothin' but clear water, and we also see a model of the boat
Columbus sailed in to discover us.

Robert Strong who wuz always interested in the best things, said that
the first newspaper ever published appeared in Venice three hundred
years ago, and the first bank was started there.

You can walk all over Venice if you want to take the time to go furder
round and cross the bridges and walk through narrer, crooked little
streets, some on 'em not more'n five or six feet wide, but the easiest
and quickest way is to take a boat, as well as the most agreeable.

Venice is built on seventy-two islands besides the Grand Canal which
takes the place of our avenues and streets. There is a charm about
Venice that there is not about any other city I ever see. You dream
about it before you see it and then you dream on and keep dreamin' as
long as you stay there, a sort of a wakin' dream, though you keep your
senses.

Memories of the past seem to hant you more, mebby it is because them
old memories can slip along easier over them glassy streets, easier
than they can over our hard rocky pavements. 'Tennyrate they meet you
on every side and stay right with you as long as you are there and
hant you. As you float down them liquid roads you seen face to face
sweet, wise Portia, "fair and fairer than that word;" and gallant
Bassanio who made such a wise choice, and Shylock, the old Jew. And if
you happen to git put out with your pardner, mebby he'll find fault
with you, and say demeanin' words about wimmen or sunthin' like that,
whilst sweet Portia's eyes are on you, if you feel like reprovin' him
sharp, then you'll remember: "The quality of mercy is not strained, it
droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven, it blesseth him that gives
and him that takes."

And so you forgive him. And then beautiful, sad Beatrice de Cenci will
meet you by moonlight in front of some of them old marble palaces and
her pa, about as mean a man as they make, and his sister, Lucretia de
Borgia, that wicked, wicked creeter. Why, it beats all what mean folks
Beatrice's relation wuz on her pa's side.

And you thought of any number of queer old Doges, rainin' and pizenin'
and actin', some on 'em, and marryin' the Adriatic; a poor match in my
opinion and one that you couldn't expect to turn out well, the bride
bein' slippery and inconstant and the bridegroom me