How exquisite they were! As one read them, one seemed to be
floating down the green water-ways of the pink and pearl city,
seated in a black gondola with silver prow and trailing curtains.
The mere lines looked to him like those straight lines of
turquoise-blue that follow one as one pushes out to the Lido.
The sudden flashes of colour reminded him of the gleam of
the opal-and-iris-throated birds that flutter round the tall
honeycombed Campanile, or stalk, with such stately grace,
through the dim, dust-stained arcades. Leaning back with
half-closed eyes, he kept saying over and over to himself:
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