Clara Erskine Clement Waters

“ In the evening the followers of Doria are seen in a dreamy and trance-like posture, holding with tremulous hands the palm which they have so dearly won, and thinking of the reply which they must give when, on their return, mothers ask for their children, and children for their fathers, who have lost their liberty or their lives on that too eventful day. Curzola hears no shouts of victory, no songs of triumph; several thousand Genoese have felt the edge of Venetian steel; several thousand Venetians see before their dim and feverish vision the horror and ignominy of a Genoese dungeon ”

“ THE ILLUMINATION.
This is the appropriate end of a really grand festival; and the scene in the Piazza is as beautiful, if not as exciting, as the race or the serenade. So brilliant is the light that not a detail of the architecture is lost. Every column, with all its ornament, each cornice, pillar, and curve is outlined by little jets of golden flame, and even of a deeper tint; and all these lights are flickering just enough to dazzle the eye with an effect like a rippling sea of fire. In weird contrast is the façade of San Marco, lighted by electricity. ”

“ Yonder square white house, standing out to sea, fronting Murano and the Alps, they call the Casa degli Spiriti. No one cares to inhabit it; for here, in old days, it was the wont of the Venetians to lay their dead for a night's rest before their final journey to the graveyard of S. Michele. So many generations of dead folk had made that house their inn, that it is now no fitting house for living men. ”

“ The bell of the Campanile was tolled, and at once the armed citizens filled the Piazza. The sobs and moans of women were heard; elsewhere they were seen wringing their hands and tearing their hair in mute despair. Some men, too, yielded to fear; while others in their avarice hid their treasures. But the majority were true Venetians, and declared that "the State cannot be lost while those remain who can man a galley and handle a pike;" and the aged Doge, the Council, and Senate refused to allow any reason for despair. ”

“ VETTORE PISANI AND CARLO ZENO.
On April 22, 1378, the Doge Andrea Contarini, in the Basilica of San Marco, invested Pisani with the supreme command of the Venetian fleet. As he presented the great banner to him, the Doge solemnly said: "You are destined by God to defend with your valor this Republic, and to retaliate upon those who have dared to insult her and to rob her of that security which she owes to the virtues of our progenitors. Wherefore we confide to you this victorious and dread standard, which it will be your duty to restore to us unsullied and triumphant." ”

“ The twilight grows less and less. How silent the world seems! The gentle dip of the oars alone is heard, until, as we come nearer the city, a snatch of song falls on our ear, a gondola overtakes us, and Giacomo cheerfully greets a comrade. As we near the Piazzetta, all light is gone from the sea. We leave an inky darkness behind, which makes the blinking lamps on the Molo seem brilliant by contrast. ”

“ There is no similar trophy in the world: naval combats, ships with curved prows like swan's necks, galleys with crowded banks of oars, battlements discharging showers of arrows, floating standards amidst masts, a tumultuous strife of struggling and engulfed combatants, crowds of Illyrians, Saracens, and Greeks, naked bodies bronzed by the sun and deformed by contests, stuffs of gold, damascene armor, silks starred with pearls, all the strange medley of that heroic, luxurious display which transpires in Venetian history from Zara to Damietta, and from Padua to the Dardanelles ”

“ It is a pleasant place to take luncheon, with a lovely panorama before us, to which the boats and their ever-fascinating sails give life and cheerfulness. Beyond the canal of the Giudecca rises the dome of the Redentore; the square tower of the Dogana and the cupolas of the Salute make a striking effect against the cloudless sky; well round to the right we see the top of the Campanile behind the Ducal Palace, and before us, the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, with its picturesque church and fine clock-tower, seems very near. ”

“ The pure cumuli of cloud lie crowded and leaning against one another, rank beyond rank, far over the shining water, each cut away at its foundation by a level line, trenchant and clear, till they sink to the horizon like a flight of marble steps, except where the mountains meet them, and are lost in them, barred across by the gray terraces of those cloud foundations, and reduced into one crestless bank of blue, spotted here and there with strange flakes of wan, aerial, greenish light, strewed upon them like snow. And underneath is the long dark line of the mainland, fringed with low trees ”

“ It is not of men nor of family that we read; it is of Venice, first, last, and always.
Often as the names of Contarini, Michieli, Ziani, Dandolo, and Tiepolo appear, no one family ever held absolute power, or was independent of the others. Was this the result of their jealousy of one another? Perhaps; and it answered a great end. Never was Venice at the mercy of a race like the Medici or Visconti; and when the great ambition of her sons was turned from personal exaltation and centred in the good of the State, it became an overmastering passion, and could but produce glorious results. ”

“ It was a fireship, of which the combustion in the canal of Santa Caterina had diffused the erroneous impression. The Genoese caught and echoed the cry, and renewed their flagging exertions with fresh ardor. They are mowed down by the guns as they advance; the carnage is terrific. Still, like demons in whose breast the thirst for vengeance and the lust of spoil has extinguished the fear of death, they continue to come up. The Venetians begin to lose ground and to fall back upon the bridge. ”

“ A few paces off, bare and erect like a ship's mast, the gigantic Campanile towers in the air, and announces to distant mariners the time-honored royalty of Venice. At its base, closely pressed to it, the delicate loggetta of Sansovino seems like a flower, so many statues, bas-reliefs, bronzes, and marbles, whatever is rich and imaginative of living and elegant art, crowd around it to adorn it...
"Like a magnificent diamond in a brilliant setting, the Ducal Palace effaces the rest.... Never has the like architecture been seen; all here is novel. ”

“ The bridge is crowded densely by the procession arrested to watch the search for the relic, and the light is thrown on the faces of the priests and monks who chiefly compose it. All along the Fondamenta is a concourse of richly dressed ladies in magnificent costumes and gorgeous jewels, whose shoulders and faces are increased in beauty by the thin veils that soften but do not conceal their features or their rich necklaces and coronets. They kneel closely together, and no doubt will follow the procession when it moves. They are not young, but in the height of womanly dignity and grace ”

“ The most delicious of days is that when in the cool morning we take to our gondola, with our artist and his traps, the books that we think we shall read but rarely do, the fancy work which soon loses its interest, the rugs on which to lie for the afternoon siesta, the basket with the solid luncheon, a second with fruit and sweets, and a third with wine. ”