Well might it seem that such a city had owed her existence rather to the
rod of the enchanter than the fear of the fugitive; that the waters
which encircled her had been chosen for the mirror of her state rather
than the shelter of her nakedness; and that all which in nature was wild
or merciless--Time and Decay, as well as the waves and tempests--had
been won to adorn her instead of to destroy, and might still spare, for
ages to come, that beauty which seemed to have fixed for its throne the
sands of the hour-glass as well as of the sea.
And although the last few eventful years, fraught with change to the
face of the whole earth, have been more fatal in their influence on
Venice than the five hundred that preceded them; though the noble
landscape of approach to her can now be seen no more, or seen only by a
glance, as the engine slackens its rushing on the iron line; and though
many of her palaces are forever defaced and many in desecrated ruins,
there is still so much of magic in her aspect that the hurried
traveller, who must leave her before the wonder of that first aspect has
been worn away, may still be led to forget the humility of her origin
and to shut his eyes to the depth of her desolation.
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