green and gold that writhes and gleams hour after hour in the faintly stirred depths of the canal, a creature that in the world above is a dull grey upright pole; or of golden treasures, once the refuse of the calli, transformed to splendour as they float out over the lagoon; or of the sudden lapping of the water under the wind down the north lagoon at midnight, that breaks the smooth image of the moon into a thousand ripples and passes in a wave that makes the dim lamps tremble into the narrow waterways of the city. But it is not only the waterways of Venice that at night are eloquent of the past, that seem to take once more their ancient shape and venture near for colloquy: the streets and squares and churches are full of spirits, not unkindly, not afraid, less silent and secretive than in the busy day, when they are lonely among a people careless of them, with other thoughts, other needs and other destinies. Many a porch or gable or wide-projecting roof, or sculpture of fantastic beast or naïve saint or kneeling angel, seems to step out and call upon us in the night, catching in us perhaps as we pass by some touch of sympathy with the enduring soul of the past. One must be late indeed in Venice to secure untroubled peace. Ever and again, even after midnight, the silence of the great white campos is broken by a group scattered here and there before the door of a café; voices in eager talk will echo under a low portico, a sleepy child will clatter by in wooden pattens. But in the low-beamed, dimly lighted courts, or on the dark steps at the water-side, under some deserted sotto-portico, the sounds of the present strike across us like distant voices in a dream. The one night that lies over all the ages draws our spirit into harmony with these stones and lapping waters, that have stood through change and stress of time, that have outlived solemnity and joyous festival and have passed from gentle usage and glorious vesture into the custody of the poorest, into neglect and decay. What talk have not these courtyards overheard, what rich vesture has not swept through them, what noble thoughts and high hopes have not confided in their silence? And on the dirty steps where the children sit and play and throw their refuse into the water, what carpets have not been spread, what proud feet have not pressed to pass into the gondola and join the triumphant processional of Venice in her prime?