No cathedral so demands surrender.

You must sink on its bosom.
S.Mark's facade is, I think, more beautiful in the mass than in detail.
Seen from the Piazza, from a good distance, say half way across it, through the red flagstaffs, it is always strange and lovely and unreal.
To begin with, there is the remarkable fact that after years of familiarity with this wonderful scene, in painting and coloured photographs, one should really be here at all.

The realization of a dream is always amazing.
It is possible--indeed it may be a common experience--to find S.Mark's, as seen for the first time, especially on a Sunday or fete day, when the vast red and green and white flags are streaming before it, a little garish, a little gaudy; too like a coloured photograph; not what one thinks a cathedral ought to be.

Should it have all these hues?
one asks oneself, and replies no.

But the saint does not long permit this scepticism: after a while he sees that the doubter drifts into his vestibule, to be rather taken by the novelty of the mosaics--so much quieter in tone here--and the pavement, with its myriad delicate patterns.