I have spent two days looking for this passage, because I want to use it for this week's SLYMI (scrap something old, new borrowed or blue). I want to scrap some photos of Venice, and these words sum up exactly how I feel about Venice:

'The heaven of it is ineffable. Never before had I touched the skirts of so celestial a place. The beauty of the architecture, the silver trails of water up between all that gorgeous colour and carving, the enchanting solence, the moonlight, the music, the gondolas - I mix it all up together, and maintain that nothing is like it, nothing equal to it, not a second Venice in the world.'

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, June 1851

These beautiful words have got me all fired up to read some lovely literature - don't you ever read words which just fill you with joy & serenity?