A realist, in Venice, would become a romantic by mere faithfulness to what he saw before him.

I had my dreams of Venice, but nothing that I had dreamed was as impossible as what I found.

But we have been taught to see before our eyes have found out a way of seeing for themselves.

My soul is like this cloudy, flaming opal ring.

Hardly any one is able to see what is before him, just as it is in itself. He comes expecting one thing, he finds another thing, he sees through the veil of his preconception, he criticizes before he has apprehended, he condemns without allowing his instinct the chance of asserting itself.

It is in their eyes that their magic resides.

The mystic too full of God to speak intelligibly to the world.