"..I glanced at a sky [aboven the Grand Canal in Venice where a boat-race was going on] which since the days of the creation was never more splendidly graced with lights and shadows. The air was such as an artist would like to depict who grieved that he was not Titian. The stonework of the houses, though solid, seemed artificial, the atmosphere varied from clean to leaden. The clouds above the roofs [of Venice] merged into a distance of smokey gray, the nearest blazing like suns, more distant ones glowing as molten lead dissolving at least into horizontal streaks, now greenish blue, now bluish green.. ..And as I watched the scene I exclaimed more than once, 'Oh Titian, where art thou, and why not here to realize this scene?'"