...of Venice in spring

No one who has not seen Venice in April knows the full, the indescribable charm of that magical city. The gentleness and softness of spring are to Venice what the bright sun on summer is to majestic Genoa, what the gold and purple of autumn are to that grand old man among cities, Rome. And just as the spring stirs us and fills us with longing, so does the loveliness of Venice; she provokes and tantalises the innocent heart with a sense of imminent joy, a joy which is both simple and yet mysterious. Everything about her is light and lucid, yet over everything hangs a drowsy haze of tranquil sensuousness; everything is silent, yet everything is welcoming; everything about her is feminine, even to the very name; not for nothing is she called 'Venice the Beautiful'. The palaces and churches, in their great masses, rise light and miraculous like the harmonious dream creations of some young god; there is something fabulous and enchanting in her grey-green resplendence, in the silky gleam of her silent, rippling waters, in the silent movement of the gondolas, in the absence of rude city noises, in the freedom from clatter and turmoil and uproar. 'Venice is dying, Venice is deserted' - so her inhabitants will tell you; but it may be that in the past she lacked such charm as this, the charm of a city fading in the very culmination and flowering of its beauty. No one who has not seen her, knows her: neither Canaletto nor Guardi (not to speak of more recent painters) was able to record the silvery delicacy of her air, her vistas, so near and yet so fugitive, her marvellous harmony of graceful lines and melting colours. To the visitor, soured and broken by life, Venice has nothing to offer; to him she will be bitter as the recollection of early unrealised dreams are bitter. But for him who still has strength and confidence within him, she will be sweet; let him bring his happiness to her and expose it to her enchanted skies, and, however radiant his happiness may be, she will enrich it with her own unfading light.

[On The Eve, Turgenev, I. S.]