And so it has been for centuries, and will be.

New ideas and fashions come slowly into this city, where one does quite naturally what one's father and grandfather did; and a good instance of such contented conservatism is to be found in the music offered to these contented crowds, for they are still true to Verdi, Wagner, and Rossini, and with reluctance are experiments made among the newer men.
In the daytime the population of the Piazza is more foreign than Venetian.

In fact the only Venetians to be seen are waiters, photographers, and guides, the knots of errand boys watching the artists, and, I might add, the pigeons.

But at night Venice claims it, although the foreigner is there too.

It is amusing to sit at a table on the outside edge of Florian's great quadrangle of chairs and watch the nationalities, the Venetians, the Germans, the Austrians, and the Anglo-Saxons, as they move steadily round and round.