iver and he had entered the
abodes of life on the plane beyond. Even the hotel becomes an enchanted
palace whose salons, luxuriously decorated, open by long windows on
marble balconies overhanging the Grand Canal. Dainty little tables piled
with current reading matter, in French, English, and Italian, stand
around; the writing-desks are sumptuous, filled with every convenience
of stationery; and the matutinal coffee and rolls are served the guest
in any idyllic niche wherein he chooses to ensconce himself, regardless
of the regulation _salle-a-manger_. One looks across the Grand Canal to
the beautiful Church of Santa Maria della Salute. The water plashes
against the marble steps as gondolas glide past; the blue sky of Italy
reflects itself in the waters below, until one feels as if he were
floating in the air between sea and sky. In the heart of the city, with
throngs of people moving to and fro, all is yet silence, save the cry of
the gondolier, the confused echo of voices from the people who pass, and
here and there the faint call of a bird. No whir and rush of electric
cars and motors; no click of the horses' feet on the asphalt
pavement--no pavement, indeed, and no horses, no twentieth-century rush
of life. It is Venice, it is June, and the two combine to make an
illuminated chapter. To live in Venice is like being domesticated in the
heart of an opal. How wonderful it is to drift--a sky above and a sky
below--on still waters at sunset, with the Dream City mirrored in the
depths, every shade of gold and rose and amber mirrored back,--the very
atmosphere a sea of color, recalling to one Ruskin's words that "none of
us appreciate the nobleness and the sacredness of color. Of all God's
gifts to man," he continues, "color is the holiest, the most divine,
the most solemn. Color is the sacred and saving element." If the
enthusiasm in these words savor of exaggeration, Venice is the place
that will lure one to forgetfulness of it. One is simply conscious of
being steeped in color and revelling in a strange loveliness. One no
longer marvels at the glory of Tintoretto and Paolo Veronese. They but
interpreted on canvas the shining reality. A charming writer on Venice
has well said:--

"The aspects of Venice are as various, as manifold, as the hues
held in solution upon her waters beneath a sirocco sky. There is a
perpetual miracle of change; one day is not like another, one hour
varies from the next; there