Venice, August 18, 1858.

You have been roving over the mountains, making unseemly comparisons of Mont Blanc with a loaf of sugar, while I was working myself to death searching for gimcracks for you. I have never seen anything uglier than the things I am bringing you. It is probable that they will be seized by the custom-houses which I must encounter, or else that they will be smashed on the journey. I rejoice at this possibility, for never was such a commission given to a man of taste.

Venice had a most depressing effect on me, from which feeling I have been unable to rally for nearly two weeks. The architecture is convincing, but lacking in taste and imagination. It has made me indignant to recall the commonplaces written about some of the palaces. The canals bear a striking resemblance to the BiÈvre River, and the gondolas to an incommodious hearse. The pictures of the Academy pleased me, although none were above the rank of second-rate works. There is not a Paul Veronese to be compared to The Marriage at Cana, not a Titian comparable to Caesar’s Coin, in Dresden, or even The Crown of Thorns in Paris. I searched for a Giorgione, but there was not one in Venice.

On the other hand, I found the faces of the people attractive. The streets swarm with charming young girls, barefooted and bareheaded, who, if they were bathed and scrubbed, would be Venuses Anadyomenes. What I dislike above all else is the odor in the streets. On certain days the air was full of the smell of fritters frying, and it was insupportable.

I attended a funzione in honor of the Archduke, and found it very entertaining. He was given a serenade from the Piazzetta to the iron bridge. Six hundred gondolas followed the colossal boat containing the music. Every one carried lanterns, and many burned red or blue Bengal lights, which threw on the palaces of the Grand Canal tints of fairy-like hue. The passage of the Rialto was extremely amusing. No one could turn around or withdraw from his place, and the result was that for an hour and a quarter the entire space between the Loredan palace and the Rialto was an immovable bridge. The instant a crevice as wide as one’s hand appeared between two sterns a prow slipped into it like a coin. Every instant was heard the cracking of planks, and now and then the cracking of an oar. It is most extraordinary that in all this throng, which, in France would be the occasion of a free-for-all scrimmage, not an oath was heard, not even a word of ill-humour. These people are a compound of milk and maize. I saw yesterday, in Saint-Mark’s Place, a monk fall on his knees before an Austrian corporal who obstructed his way. I have never seen anything so distressing, and in full view of the Lion of Saint-Mark, too!

I am waiting here for Panizzi. I go in society sometimes. I visit the libraries and spend my time in a tolerably agreeable way. I saw yesterday the Armenians, and very handsome chaps they are, whom the mere sight of a senator transformed into Armenians from Constantinople. They presented me with an epic poem by one of their Fathers.

Good-bye. I shall reach Genoa, probably, the 1st of September, and Paris certainly in October. I shall go to Vienna as soon as I have heard from you. For the last few days I have been fairly well, but for more than a fortnight I was miserably ill. Good-bye again.