Ever, dear Fra Giuliano, with love to Da Rù, the Graziani, the Manins, and above all to Alec,
Yours,
Will.
And again two days later:
Shar Shan, Bor!
Which, being interpreted, is Romany (Gypsy) for “How d’ye do, Mate!”—I fear you are having a bad day for your return to Maniace. Here, at any rate, ‘tis evil weather. Last night the wind rose (after ominous signals of furtive lightnings in every quarter) to the extent of tempest: and between two and three a.m. became a hurricane. This lasted at intervals till dawn, and indeed since: and at times I thought a cyclone had seized Taormina and was intent on removing ‘Santa Caterina’ on to the top of Isola Bella. Naturally, sleep was broken. And in one long spell, when wind and a coarse rain (with a noise like sheep that has become sleet) kept wakefulness in suspense, my thoughts turned to Venice, to Giuliano in the lonely rain-beat wave-washed sanctuary of San-Francisco-in-Deserto; to Daniele Manin, with his dreams of the Venice that was and his hopes of the Venice to be; and to Adria, stilled at last in her grave in the lagunes after all her passionate life and heroic endeavour. And then I thought of the Venice they, and you, and I, love:—and recalled lines of Jacopo Sannazaro which I often repeat to myself when I think of the Sea-City as an abstraction—
“O d’Italia dolente
Eterno lumine
Venezia!”
And that’s all I have to say to-day!... except to add that this very moment there has come into my mind the remembrance of some words of Montesquieu I read last year (in the Lettres Persanes), to the effect (in English) that “altho’ one had seen all the cities of the world, there might still be a surprise in store for him in Venice,”—which would be a good motto for your book.
Your friend,