A GARDEN IN VENICE 



No noise, no flies, no dust. An air so gentle 

 that it could scarce be called a breeze. A 

 sun that warms and rarely burns ; a light, 

 veiled white and soft, that lets one read without 

 glare-made fatigue ; a climate which asks no man 

 to do anything, and is answered affirmatively by 

 all. So we, too, should have been content not 

 to do. 



The more so that in Venice there is no mono- 

 tony. Of all places on earth it is the most vari- 

 able in its moods. The changes in its colour are 

 as great from day to day, and sometimes from 

 hour to hour, as in more northern climes from 

 month to month, or even from season to season. 

 This variableness, the despair of her studious 

 student, is the joy of her loitering lover. The 

 painter finds a lovely subject, indeed they are all 

 around him, and goes from his first day's work, 

 and perhaps his second, content that he has caught 

 the tone that charmed him. Even as he says so 

 a change comes on that makes him doubtful of that 

 work. The golden light has become silver, the 

 cool blue shadows are swimming in a cinque cento 



10 



