Pagina 365 de 490

The whole of Venice was in those two lines. He remembered the

autumn that he had passed there, and a wonderful love that had

stirred him to mad delightful follies. There was romance in every

place. But Venice, like Oxford, had kept the background for

romance, and, to the true romantic, background was everything, or

almost everything. Basil had been with him part of the time, and

had gone wild over Tintoret. Poor Basil! What a horrible way for

a man to die!