n. If, as most travellers from England do,
they leave London by the 2.5 and do not break the journey, they will
reach Venice a little before midnight.

But whether it is by day or by night, this first shock of Venice is not
to be forgotten. To step out of the dusty, stuffy carriage, jostle one's
way through a thousand hotel porters, and be confronted by the sea
washing the station steps is terrific! The sea tamed, it is true; the
sea on strange visiting terms with churches and houses; but the sea none
the less; and if one had the pluck to taste the water one would find it
salt. There is probably no surprise to the eye more complete and
alluring than this first view of the Grand Canal at the Venetian
terminus.

But why do I put myself to the trouble of writing this when it has all
been done for me by an earlier hand? In the most popular of the little
guide-books to Venice--sold at all the shops for a franc and twenty
centimes, and published in German, English, and, I think, French, as
well as the original Italian--the impact of Venice on the traveller by
rail is done with real feeling and eloquence, and with a curious
intensity only possible when an Italian author chooses an Italian
translator to act as intermediary between himself and the English
reader. The author is Signor A. Carlo, and the translator, whose
independence, in a city which swarms with Anglo-Saxon visitors and even
residents, in refusing to make use of their services in revising his
English, cannot be too much admired, is Signor G. Sarri.

Here is the opening flight of these Two Gentlemen of Venice: "The
traveller, compelled by a monotone railway-carriage, to look for hours
at the endless stretching of the beautifull and sad Venetian plain,
feels getting wear, [? near] this divine Queen of the Seas, whom so many
artists, painters and poets have exalted in every time and every way;
feels, I say, that something new, something unexpected is really about
to happen: something that will surely leave a deep mark on his
imagination, and last through all his life. I mean that peculiar
radiation of impulsive energy issueing from anything really great,
vibrating and palpitating from afar, fitting the soul to emotion or
enthusiasm...."

Yesterday, or even this morning, in Padua, Verona, Milan, Chioggia, or
wherever it was, whips were cracking, hoofs clattering, motor horns
booming, wheels endangering your life. Farewell now to all!--there is
not a wheel in Veni