When I first came to Venice, I accepted the fate appointed to young men on the Continent. I took lodgings, and I began dining drearily at the restaurants. Worse prandial fortunes may befall one, but it is hard to conceive of the continuance of so great unhappiness elsewhere; while the restaurant life is an established and permanent thing in Italy, for every bachelor and for many forlorn families. It is not because the restaurants are very dirty--if you wipe your plate and glass carefully before using them, they need not stomach you; it is not because the rooms are cold--if you sit near the great vase of smoldering embers in the centre of each room you may suffocate in comparative comfort; it is not because the prices are great--they are really very reasonable; it is not for any very tangible fault that I object to life at the restaurants, and yet I cannot think of its hopeless homelessness without rebellion against the whole system it implies, as something unnatural and insufferable.

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