Venice

“ Night in Venice: the brilliant stars twinkle in the little pools of water which the sea has left on the marshes, the breeze murmurs in the verdant seaweeds. From time to time we perceive the light from a gondola gliding over the water. The voice of the Adriatic breaking on the opposite shores of the Lido reaches us in a monotonous and majestic sound. We give ourselves up to a thousand delicious dreams. ”

“ It is by moonlight that Venice is indeed an enchanted city. The effect of the floods of silver light upon the twinkling fretwork of the Moresco architecture, the total absence of all harsh sounds, the never-ceasing music on the waters, produce an effect upon the mind which cannot be experienced in any other city. As I stood gazing upon the broad track of brilliant light that quivered over the lagoon, a gondolier saluted me. I entered his boat, and desired him to row me to the Grand Canal. ”

“ THE MIRROR OF THE LAGOON
This strange, soft sea, so tempered into gentlehood, brings through its quietude another element of charm into Venice. It reflects all things with a wonderful perfection. Whatever loveliness is by its side it makes more lovely. Shallow itself, it seems deep; and the towers and palaces of Venice in all their colours descend and shine among other clouds and in another sky below. All outlines of sculpture and architecture, of embossment, in wall and window; all play of sunshine and shade ”

“ An hour before sunset I arrived at Fusina, and beheld, four or five miles out at sea, the towers and cupolas of Venice suffused with a rich golden light, and rising out of the bright blue waters. Not an exclamation escaped me. I felt like a man who has achieved a great object. ”

“ I speak of the summer days—it is the summer Venice that is the visible Venice. The big tarry barges are drawn up at the fondamenta, and the bare-legged boatmen, in faded blue cotton, lie asleep on the hot stones. If there were no colour anywhere else there would be enough in their tanned personalities. Half the low doorways open into the warm interior of waterside drinking-shops, and here and there, on the quay, beneath the bush that overhangs the door, there are rickety tables and chairs. Where in Venice is there not the amusement of character and of detail? ”

“ Amidst grand architectural forms of balconies and spiral columns sits Venice, the blonde, on a throne, radiant with beauty, with that fresh and rosy carnation peculiar to the daughters of humid climates, her silken skirt spread out beneath a silken mantle. Around her a circle of young women bend over with a voluptuous and yet haughty smile, possessing that Venetian charm peculiar to a goddess who has a courtesan's blood in her veins, but who rests on a cloud and attracts men to her instead of descending to them. ”

“ One's imagination is inclined to run riot in Venice. One gilds, and romances, and fills the city with pomp and pageantry, ornamenting the canals with State barges, the piazza with noble men and fair women, and the Ducal Palace with illustrious Doges. But far more interesting is it to see Venice as she really is, in her own simple strength. Think of the more rugged Venice, that city built by strong and patient men against such terrible odds, and in so wild and solitary a spot. ”

“ It was already completely night as I stood on the little steamer, which is the Venetian omnibus, and was borne, swiftly and silently, through the nocturnal mystery of the Grand Canal. More than ever, Venice is romantic at such an hour. Its palaces glimmer above the flood in a perfection that the day denies. ”

“ A hasty farewell look, as we sped down the grand canal, at the gorgeous palaces, even less famous than beautiful—a glance at the disappearing Rialto, and we shot out into the Giudecca in a blaze of sunset glory. Oh how magnificently looked Venice in that light—rising behind us from the sea—all her superb towers and palaces, turrets and spires, fused into gold; and the waters about her, like a mirror of stained glass, without a ripple!
An hour and a half of hard rowing brought us to the nearest 255 land. You should go to Venice to know how like a dream a reality may be. ”

“ Venice was more beautiful than romances had feigned.
And that was the impression that remained, and even deepened, during our stay of eight days. That quiet which seems the deeper because one hears the delicious dip of the oar (when not disturbed by clamorous church bells) , leaves the eye in full liberty and strength to take in the exhaustless loveliness of colour and form.
We were in our gondola by nine o’clock the next morning, and of course the first point we sought was the Piazza di San Marco. ”

“ But is not all a Venetian summer full of charm? To us each day is a lovely festa.
A REGATTA.
Venice is especially suited to scenic displays upon the water,—the winding Grand Canal, cutting the city like a mammoth letter S, opening into the Basin of St. Mark, the Ducal Palace on one side, and San Giorgio on the other, the curve of the Riva degli Schiavoni running into the public gardens, all lend themselves to spectacles with perfect fitness. ”

“ This face and figure are almost unique among the beautiful things of Venice, and they leave the susceptible observer with the impression of having made, or rather having missed, a strange, a dangerous, but a most valuable, acquaintance. The lady, who is superbly handsome, is the typical Venetian of the sixteenth century, and she remains for the mind the perfect flower of that society. Never was there a greater air of breeding, a deeper expression of tranquil superiority. She walks a goddess--as if she trod without sinking the waves of the Adriatic. ”

“ There is no brighter place in Venice; by which I mean that, on the whole, there is none half so bright. The reflected sunshine plays up through the great windows from the glittering lagoon, and shimmers and twinkles over gilded walls and ceilings. All the history of Venice, all its splendid, stately past, glows around you in a strong sea-light. Every one here is magnificent, but the great Veronese is the most magnificent of all. ”

“ A flood of crimson suffused the pallor of her pearly diadem, and her maidens, sleeping grey among the waters round her, unfolded rosy petals upon the surface of the lagoon.
It is this power of living communion with the daily pageant in which sun and moon are doge and emperor, and the stars and the clouds their retinue—this it is which, finding expression once at Venice in a temporal glory that has passed away, is the abiding assurance of her immortality. This is the spirit which, if once it helped to make her great, still makes her great to-day, the spirit that endures. ”

“ The lightness of the heavens, the even purity of the air, the steely shine of the lagoon, the roseate reflections of the walls, the nights as clear as day, the softness of the Venetian dialect, the trustfulness and placability of the people, their tolerance for all men’s humours, and their gentle intercourse—out of all these results that unseizable and seductive quality which is indeed Venice, which sings at a man’s heart, and so possesses and subdues him that he shall feel far from home whenever he is far from the Piazzetta. ”

“ As it is, though singularly Venetian—the wave-paved streets beneath, the bridge close at hand—the peep we get at wider waters at the opening,—it is but a promise of what we may find beyond, and tempts us to wander.
There is something so different in Venice from any other place in the world, that you leave at once all accustomed habits and everyday sights to enter enchanted ground. We live in a palace; though an inn, such it is: and other palaces have been robbed of delicately-carved mouldings and elegant marbles, to decorate the staircase and doorways. ”

“ Nay, what potenter magic needs my Venice to revivify her past whenever she will, than the serpent cunning of her Grand Canal?... For myself, I must count as half lost the year spent in Venice before I took a house upon the Grand Canal. There alone can existence have the perfect local flavour. But by what witchery touched, one’s being suffers the common sea-change, till life at last seems to ebb and flow with the tide in that wonder-avenue of palaces, it would be idle to attempt to tell. ”

“ It would seem that just as the rapid extension of Venice on the mainland under Francesco Foscari was the blossom of all her long centuries of physical and constitutional growth, so the sudden artistic expansion of the later fifteenth century was the flowering of Venice in the intellectual and emotional region. The bloom presaged decay. Death was already at the roots before the flower had opened to its fullest splendor. ”

“ Venice itself was really so different to any other Italian city; a richly adorned bride for the mighty sea. The winged Venetian lion waved on the flag above me. The sails swelled in the wind, and concealed the coast from me. I sat upon the right side of the ship, and looked out across the blue, billowy sea; a young lad sat not far from me, and sang a Venetian song about the bliss of love and the shortness of life: ‘Kiss the red lips, on the morrow thou art with the dead; love whilst thy heart is young, and thy blood is fire and flame! Grey hairs are the flowers of death: then is the blood ice ”

“ Scores of tiny plants are turning scarlet on the brown moist earth; and when the sun goes down behind the Euganean hills, his crimson canopy of cloud, reflected on these shallows, muddy shoals, and wilderness of matted weeds, converts the common earth into a fairyland of fabulous dyes. Purple, violet, and rose are spread around us. In front stretches the lagoon, tinted with a pale light from the east, and beyond this pallid mirror shines Venice—a long low broken line, touched with the softest roseate flush. Ere we reach the Giudecca on our homeward way, sunset has faded. ”

“ Venice gave such caresses to her triumphant warriors, such glowing praise for their bravery, such elegant and noble rewards for their prudence, such rare pleasures to recompense their slightest services! Nowhere else could one find such splendid feasts, enjoy such luxurious idleness, or plunge at will, to-day in a whirlwind of pleasure, to-morrow in voluptuous repose. Venice was the most beautiful city of Europe; the most corrupted and the most virtuous. The righteous could there be always good, the vicious always bad. ”

“ In the light of summer mornings, in the glow of winter sunsets, Venice stands out upon the blue background, the sea that brims upwards to her very doors, the sky that sweeps in widening circles all around, radiant with an answering tone of light. She is all wonder, enchantment, the brightness and the glory of a dream. Her own children cannot enough paint her, praise her, celebrate her splendours ”

“ Venetians were united in one aim,—that Venice should be the most beautiful and most powerful of cities. And so it happens that in the voluminous records of her history and life, while they give a vivid realization of the thought, energy, and power which thousands of her sons must have possessed and must have dedicated to her glory; while as one reads he may almost hear the hum of her busy life and feel the throbbing of her pulses, little prominence is given to individuals. ”

“ It is not merely that I love for their own sakes the liquid and dustless thoroughfares of Venice, the dim cool churches and galleries that glow with the jewels of Bellini and Tintoret, the push of the gliding gondola round the corners of the narrow canals beneath the mouldering cornices and mellow brickwork, for I should love these things wherever they happened to be, and the actual spell of Venice would be potent if Venice was situated in the United States of America or in Manchester. ”

“ Venice has grown old now, and she is content to doze in the sun’s warmth and to dream of the golden past. Her gates are open now to inquisitive sightseers, and one can imagine her smile of amusement when, every now and again, some impudent brat digs her in the ribs, Ruskin-like, and bellows his fortnight-formed opinions of her in her ear. ”

“ The Venice which one visits to-day is so curiously a part and not a part of the ancient Venice of which we dream, that one feels, when in that sea-enveloped and fairy-like city, a strange sense of duality,—of being a veritable antique and an equally veritable modern. He has a genuine sympathy with the past, and regrets that he has not the enchanter's wand to bring it all back again,—long enough, at least, for him to revel in its magnificence. ”

“ It has scarcely lasted an hour; but you are tired from a long journey; you soon fall asleep from weariness, hardly asking yourself, in the first uncertainty and fatigue, over what Styx you have sailed, what strange city you have traversed, and whether you have not been the dupe of a dream. In the morning you rush out upon the balcony, and there, amidst dazzling fight and a very debauch of colours, with a shimmering of pearl and silver, triumphant upon the waters of her lagoon, you behold that Venice which you have never seen except in Byron, in Otway, Musset, and George Sand. ”

“ The political history of Venice, stripped of its tinsel and melodrama, is tedious as a twice-told tale. Her art, her palaces, are her own eternally, a treasury inexhaustible as the light and mystery of the waters upon which she rests like a lily, the changeful element multiplying her structured loveliness and the opalescent hues of her sky. ”