Venice is a city of yesterdays.
One should stay in her midst either long enough really to know something about her or only for three or four days.

In the second case all is magical and bewildering, and one carries away, for the mind to rejoice in, no very definite detail, but a vague, confused impression of wonder and unreality and loveliness.

Dickens, in his _Pictures of Italy_, with sure instinct makes Venice a city of a dream, while all the other towns which he describes are treated realistically.
But for no matter how short a time one is in Venice, a large proportion of it should be sacred to idleness.

Unless Venice is permitted and encouraged to invite one's soul to loaf, she is visited in vain..