Venice never knew idolatry: she grew up Christian in the island where she was reared, far from the brutality of Attila. The women descended from the Scipios, the Pauli and the Eustochie escaped from Alaric's violence in the Grotto of Bethlehem. Standing apart from all other cities, the eldest daughter of ancient civilization without ever having been dishonoured by conquest, Venice contains neither Roman remains nor monuments of the Barbarians. Nor does one see there what one sees in the north and west of Europe, in the midst of industrial progress: I refer to those new structures, those whole streets built in a hurry, in which the houses remain either unfinished or empty. What could one build here? Wretched dens which would show the poverty of conception of the sons after the magnificence of the genius of the fathers; white-washed hovels which would not reach to the first storey of the gigantic residences of the Foscaris and the Pesaros. When one sees the trowel of mortar and the handful of plaster that have had to be applied, for an urgent repair, against a marble capital, one is shocked. Better the rotten planks boarding up Grecian or Moorish windows, the rags hung out to dry on graceful balconies, than the imprint of the mean hand of our century. [Sidenote: The view from my windows.] Why cannot I lock myself up in this town which harmonizes so well with my destiny, in this city of poets, where Dante, Petrarch, Byron passed! Why cannot I finish writing my Memoirs by the light of the sun that falls upon these pages! At this moment the luminary is still burning my Floridan savannahs and is setting here at the end of the Grand Canal. I can no longer see it; but, through an opening in this wilderness of palaces, its rays strike the ball of the Dogana, the lateen-sails of the boats, the yards of the ships and the porch of the convent of San Giorgio Maggiore. The tower of the monastery, changed into a rosy column, is reflected in the waves; the white front of the church is so brightly lighted that I can pick out the smallest details of the chisel. The outlines of the shops of the Giudecca are painted with a Titian light; the gondolas on the canal and the harbour are swimming in the same light. Venice is there, seated on the shore, like a beautiful woman about to die away with the day-light: the evening breeze lifts up her balmy tresses; she dies saluted by all the graces and all the smiles of nature. VENICE, _September_ 1833.