ABSTRACT
Common sense had little to do with its founding, the swampy shores of the lower Mississippi being a most unwise choice for a city site. We are lonely even in the milling crowds of a city, where we may only be recognized as customers for goods and services. Our personalities are weakened and starved by the impersonal life in a city. That is why there is so much wreckage in a city. Our families answer this need to some degree, but not completely. And so, in the last analysis, it is only God who can give the comfort of utter understanding. The cities Europe offers us are too full of the din of the past. A practised ear can make out the flapping of wings, a fluttering of souls. Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go.
