304 ELIZABETH CARY AGASSIZ 
annual recurrence. I fancy we owe this very much 
to Mr. Eliot’s influence. 
So you see my mind is much at peace about 
Radcliffe matters, and I feel more and more inclined 
for the restful influences here which creep into my 
life more and more — a little like the Lotos-eaters, 
perhaps, in the land where it was “‘always afternoon”’; 
but I give myself up to it for the time being very 
contentedly. 
Perarolo, July 26, 1895 
... THERE were three or four interesting masses 
sung in St. Mark’s on successive days just before 
we left Venice, and I went to all but one. The first 
was at sunset, an hour which is so beautiful at St. 
Mark’s because there are high windows which throw 
the light shortly before sunset into the upper part 
of the church and light up those wonderful mosaics 
and make them as fresh as yesterday with their 
gilded backgrounds. The music was very fine and 
the scene is always so engrossing — the figures mov- 
ing about or kneeling, the priests coming and going, 
the mingling of rich and poor. But in Venice where 
are there not pictures? In the boats, on the church 
steps, in the by-ways— those little narrow calle, where 
the land traffic goes on, — the markets, etc., — one 
grows monotonous in calling attention every minute 
to these things, which from their frequency might 
seem commonplace, but every group is different. I 
could never see a grass boat coming in from the is- 
lands with its green load built up in perfect symme- 
