If Florence was left behind in a memory of purple mist, the highroad between it and Bologna would awaken the most poetic. The word "highroad" is a little creation of my own in this connection, but I feel sure you will believe it to be "high" when I tell you that Florence lies at the foot of the Apennines and Bologna at the summit; and that the railway is, by some miracle of engineering, built up through and around these mountains. We threaded forty-five tunnels, swung around numberless viaducts, crawled over heart-stilling trestleworks connecting one peak with another, and finally came out on top, much dirty and more tired.
We arrived in Venice at 12 o'clock, midnight, at the full of the moon. It cannot be compared with my Florentine dream, for while they are both exquisitely lovely, they are different. There is nothing on earth quite like Venice by moonlight.
All things lose perspective at close range, or in the glare of the sun's rays, and Venice shares this disenchantment. It matters little what or how much one has read of Venice—to realize its charm, its color scheme and its uniqueness it must be experienced. For Venice is not a thing, it is an experience.
We owned a gondola,—for a week. We lived in it, and I, sometimes, slept in it while we were being wafted from one place to another.
THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE
There is the usual—oh, no! there is nothing usual in Venice—cathedral, as in all cities, but St. Mark's stands out first and forever as The Church of all churches. My first glimpse of this pile of precious stones was unexpected and most dramatic to me.
There were no letters that morning, and I was just walking—I did not care where or on what. What's beauty and loveliness compared to One letter? An arcade blocked the way, and not knowing—not caring—where it led, I passed in and through it. Chancing to look up, I found myself in the light of day, and straight before me, ablaze with the sunlight full on its façade, was a structure of lavish Oriental magnificence.
"What is that?" I cried aloud.