From the Oak to the Olive Part 6

Here our rapture will cost nothing. We will feed our eyes. The sea and sky shall wear sapphires and diamonds for us. Our shabbiness will be the aesthetic complement to their splendors. Do you not remember the figures in brown or olive green that always lurk in the corners of pictures in whose centre the Madonna, or some saint, is glorified? They also serve, who only stand and wait in the shadow. So will we do now. We will lie forgotten in the corner of this splendid picture, while our time and our remaining credit equalize themselves a little. The days in Naples considerably outran our estimate; the days here must make up for it. And we want nothing; and all is delightful.

It is true, we do not carry out those good intentions quite literally.

Who ever does? But we adhere to our proposed outline of rigid economy with only an occasional break. We soon begin to take note of small temptations that lie about the streets. Here we see the little neck-ribbons that are so cheap and pretty. A handful of them twisted around the neck of Economy give her something of a choke. Further on in our days and walks, a sound of saws in motion arrests our attention; while a sign and tempting show-case urge us at least to _look_ at the far-famed Sorrento woodwork. We enter; we set the tenth clause of the Decalogue at nought, coveting wildly. Brackets, tea, glove, and cash boxes are displayed there for our overthrow; watch-cases, on a new principle, all either brave with mosaic, or smooth and s.h.i.+ning in the simple beauty of the olive wood. Something of all this we s.n.a.t.c.hed and fled. We took far too little for our wishes, rather too much for our means. Silk stockings we did resist by that simplest and best of measures--not entering the shops in which they were pressingly advertised. The very pa.s.sing of those shops gave us, however, vague dreams of swimming about in silken movements; how grateful in a world of heat! But the line has to be drawn somewhere, and we draw it here.

A donkey excursion pleasantly varies our experience in Sorrento. Do you know how much a donkey ride means in Sorrento? It does not mean a perpetual jolt, and horrible inter-asinicidal contest between the a.s.s who carries the stick and the a.s.s who carries you. The donkeys of Sorrento are fat and well-liking: smooth and gray are the pair that come for us, comfortable as to the saddle and the bridle. And our donkey-driver is a handsome youth, with a bold, frank countenance, and the ripest olive and vermilion complexion. His walk is graceful and robust; he knows every one he meets, and has his bit of fun with sundry of the groups who pa.s.s us. These consist of men and women bearing on their heads large flat baskets filled with coc.o.o.ns, or in their hands bundles of the same; girls leading mules, or carrying household burdens; soldiers, beggars, Neapolitan princes, the syndic of Sorrento, and other varieties of the species vaguely called human. He takes us up a steep and rough ascent to the telegraph station. There are many bad bits in the road; he is but one, and the donkeys are two; but he has such a clever way, at critical moments, of holding on to the head of the second donkey in conjunction with the tail of the first, that he gets the two cowardly riders through many difficulties and more fears. Once on level ground, the donkeys amble along delightfully. So pleasant is the whole in remembrance, that, sitting here, at an interval of many miles in distance, and ten days in time, we feel a sincere twinge in remembering that we gave him only a franc for himself, paying by agreement two francs for either donkey. Forgive us, beauteous and generous Gaetano, and do not curse us in _aggio_ and _saggio_, the open-mouthed _patois_ of your country.

FLORENCE.

A week is little for the grandeurs of Florence, much for the discomforts of its summer weather. The last week of May, which we pa.s.sed there, mistook itself for June, and governed itself accordingly. We went out as early as human weakness, unsubdued by special discipline, permitted. We struggled with church, gallery, painting, sculpture, and antiquities.

We breathlessly read sensible books, guides, and catalogues, in the little intervals of our sight-seeing. We dropped at night, worn and greedy for slumber; and the day died, and made no sign.

A hot week, but a happy one. To be overcome in a good cause is glorious, and our failure, we trust, was quant.i.tative, not qualitative. Good friends helped us, took away all little troubles and responsibilities; took us about in carriages of dignity and ease, and landed us before royal, imperial works of art. With all their aid and cheris.h.i.+ng, Florence was too many for us. So, of her garment of splendors, we were able only to catch at and hold fast a shred here and there, and whether these fragments are worth weaving into a chapter at all, will better appear when we shall have made the experiment of so combining them.

Our first view of her was by night; when, wearied with a day's shaking, a hot and a long one, we tumbled out of railroad car into arms of philanthropic friend, who received us and our bundles, selected our luggage, conquered our porter and hackman, pointed to various interesting quadrangles of lamps, and said, "This is Florence." But we had seen such things before, and gave little heed--our thought machinery being quite run down for lack of fuel. The aspect which we first truly perceived, and still remember, was that of a clean and friendly interior, a tea-table set, a good lamp bright with American _petrolio_ (O shade of Downer!), and, behind an alcove, the dim, inviting perspective of a comfortable bed, which seemed to say, "Come hither, weary ones. I have waited long enough, and so have you."

PALAZZO PITTI.

The second aspect of Florence was the Pitti Palace, brown and ma.s.sive; and the bridges numerously spanning the bright river; and the gay, busy streets, shady in lengths and sunny only in patches; the picturesque _melange_ of business and of leisure, artisans, country people, English travellers and dressed-up Americans; the jeweller's bridge, displaying ropes of pearls and flashes of diamonds, with endless knottings and perplexities of gold and mosaic; alabaster shops, reading-rooms, book-stores, fas.h.i.+ons, cabinets of antiquities--all leading to a welcome retirement within the walls of the Palazzo Pitti.

Well content was the Medici to live in it, ill content to exchange it, even for the promised threshold of Paradise. A good little sermon here suggests itself, of which the text was preached long ago, "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." And Medici's investments had been large in Pitti, and trifling in Paradise; hence the difficulty of realizing in the latter. Within the Pitti Palace are things that astonish the world, and have a right to do so, as have all the original results of art. The paintings are all--so to speak--set on doors that open into new avenues of thought and speculation for mankind.

The ideal world, of which the real is but a poor a.s.sertion, has, in these glimpses, its truest portraiture. Their use and dignity have also limits which the luxury and enthusiasm of mankind transgress. But indispensable were they in the world's humanization and civilization: that is enough to say of them.

O, unseen in twenty-three years, and never to be seen again with the keen relish of youth. What have I kept of you? What good seed from your abundant harvest has ripened in my stony corner of New England? Your forms have filled and beautified the blank pages of life, for every life has its actual blanks, which the ideal must fill up, or which else remain bare and profitless forever. And you are here, my Seggiola, and you, my Andreas and Peruginos and Raphael; and Guercino's woman in red still tenderly clasps the knees of the dead Savior. But O! they have restored this picture, and daubed the faded red with savage vermilion.

Scarcely less ungrateful than the restoration of a beautiful picture is the attempt to restore, after the busy intervals of travelling, the precious impressions made by works and wonders of art. The incessant labor of sight-seeing in Florence left little time for writing up on the spot, and that little was necessarily given to recording the then recent recollections of Naples and Rome. It was in Venice that I first tried to overtake the subject of Florence. It is in Trieste that I sit down and despair of doing the poorest justice to either. My meagre notes must help me out; but, in setting them down, I forgot how rapidly and entirely the material, of which they gave the outline, would disappear.

I thought that I held it, so far as mind possession goes, forever. At the feast of the G.o.ds we think our joys eternal.

On reference to the notes, then, I find that the best Andreas and Fra Bartolomeos are to be found here, and quite a number of them in the Pitti. Some of the first Raphaels also are here, and some t.i.tians. The Seggiola looked to me a little dim under her gla.s.s. The Fates of Michael Angelo were strong and sincere. Two of the Andreas are the largest I remember, and very finely composed. Each represents some modification of the Madonna and Saints, subjects of which we grow very weary. Yet one perceives the necessity of these pictures at the time in which they were painted. The aesthetic platform of the time would have them, and accepted little else. A much smaller picture shows us the heads of Andrea and his beautiful wife, the _Lucia_, made famous by Browning. The two heads look a little dim now, both with age, and one with sorrow. Raphael's pictures, seen here in copious connection with those of his predecessors, appear as the undoubted culmination of the Florentine school, grandly drawn, and conceived with the subtlest grace and spirit.

The Florentine school, as compared with others, has a great weight of aesthetic reason behind it. It reminds me of some rare writing in which what is given you represents much besides itself. The best Peruginos share this merit, so do, in a different manner, the works of Beato Angelico, whose wonderful faces deserve their gold background. How to overtake these supreme merits in the regions of prose and of verse, one scarcely knows. By combining bold and immediate conception with untiring energy, unflinching criticism, and a nicety that stops before no painfulness, one might do it. Life runs like a centiped; one dreams of being an artist, and dies.

Here it may not be amiss for me to recur to the form of my diary, whose inartistic jottings will best give the order of my days and movements.

Wednesday, May 29.--Walked to Santa Croce, hearing that a ma.s.s was to be celebrated there for the Florentine victims of '48. When I arrived, the ma.s.s was nearly over; the attendance had been very numerous, and we found many people still there. Near the high altar were wreaths and floral trophies. I should be glad to know whether the priests who celebrated this ma.s.s did so with a good will. The ideas of '48 are the deadly enemies of the absolute and unbounded a.s.sumptions of the Roman papacy and priesthood. I hear that many of the priests desire a more liberal construction of their office. Would to G.o.d it might be so. It is most mournful that those who stand, in the public eye, for the religion of the country, should be pledged to a course utterly out of equilibrium with the religious ideas of the age. Thus religious forms contradict the spirit and essence of religion, and the established fountain-heads of improvement shut the door against social and moral amelioration.

In Santa Croce we hastily visited the monument erected to Alfieri by the Countess of Albany, and the tombs of Machiavelli, Galileo, and Raphael Morghen. The last has a mural background of florid marble, of a light red color, with a rec.u.mbent figure in white marble, and an elaborate medallion of the same material, representing the Madonna, infant and saints. I fully hoped and intended to revisit this venerable and interesting church, but was never able to do so. It has lately received, as all the world knows, a fine front in pure white marble, adorned by bas-reliefs executed by the popular sculptor Fedi. In the square before the church stands the new statue of Dante, which I found graceful, but not grandiose, nor indeed characteristic. The face bears no trace of the great poem; the awe and dignity of super-human visions do not appear in its lines. He, making h.e.l.l and heaven present to our thoughts, did a far deeper and more difficult work than those accomplished who made their material semblance present to our eyes.

The remainder of this morning we devoted to the gallery of the Uffizi, the artistic _pendant_ of the Pitti. We hastily make its circuit with a friend who points out to us the portraits of Alfieri and the Countess of Albany, his lady and companion. The head of Alfieri is bold and striking, the hair red, the temperament showing more of the northern energy than of the southern pa.s.sion. The sobriety of his works and laborious character of his composition also evince this. The countess, painted from mature life, shows no very marked characteristic. Hers is the face of an intelligent woman, but her especial charm does not appear in this portrait.

The Uffizi collection appears to have been at once increased and rearranged during the three and twenty years of our absence. We find the Niobides grouped in an order different from that in which we remember them. The portrait gallery of modern artists is for us a new feature, and one which, alas! we have not time to study, seeing that the great _chefs-d'oeuvres_ imperiously challenge our attention, and that our time is very short for them. We spend a dreamy hour in the Tribune, whose very circ.u.mscription is a relief. Here we are not afraid of missing anything. This _etui_ of gems is so perfectly arranged and inventoried that the absence of any one of them would at once be perceived. Here stands the Venus, in incomparable nudity. Here the Slave still sharpens his instrument--the cla.s.sic Boxers hold each other in close struggle. Raphael, Correggio, Michael Angelo, Carlo Dolce, are all here in concentration. You can look from one to the other, and read the pictorial language of their dissents and arguments. A splendid Paul Veronese, in half figures, merits well its place here. It represents a Madonna and attendant female saint: the hair and costumes are of the richest Venetian type; and though the crinkles of the one and the stripes of the other scarcely suggest the fas.h.i.+ons of Palestine, they make in themselves a very gorgeous presentment. In the other rooms we remember some of the finest Raphaels, a magnificent Perugino, Sodoma's beautiful St. Sebastian, a famous Salutation of Mary and Elizabeth, by Albertinelli, a very tipsy and impudent Silenus by Rubens, with other pictures of his which I cannot characterize. The Vand.y.k.es were all hung too high to be well seen. They did not seem nearly so fine as the Vand.y.k.es in the Brignoli Palace in Genoa. Here are some of Beato Angelico's finest works, among others his famous triptych, from whose bordering of miniature angels so many copies are constantly made. Here is also a well-known Leonardo da Vinci, as well as Raphael's portraits of Leo Tenth, attended by a cardinal and another dignitary. A narrow gallery is occupied by numerous marble alto relievos by Luca della Robbia and Donatello; here is also a marble bas-relief of the Madonna and Child, the work of the great Michael.

By knocking at a side door you gain admittance into a small chamber, whose gla.s.s cases contain works of art in gold, crystal, and precious stones. Here is a famous cup, upon whose cover a golden Hercules encounters the many heads of the Hydra, brilliant with varied enamels, the work of Benvenuto Cellini. Miniature busts in agate and jasper, small columns of the same materials,--these are some of the features which my treacherous memory records. It has, however, let slip most of what is precious and characteristic in this collection. The Uffizi demands at least a week's study for even the slightest sketch of its contents. We had but a week for all Florence, and tasted of the great treasure only on this day, and a subsequent one still more hurried. In remembrance, therefore, we can only salute it with a free confession of our insufficiency.

Thursday.--A _dies non_ for the galleries. It was a Festa, and they were all closed. So was the Bargello. The Boboli gardens were not open till noon, at which time the heat made them scarcely occupable. We visited the Church of San Michele, which was formerly a Loggia, or building with open sides and arches, like others still existing in various parts of the city. The filling up of these open arches changed it into a church.

They tell us that it is to be reconverted into a Loggia, to answer the present necessities of the over-crowded city. Here we found a curious tabernacle, carved in marble--a square enclosure, with much detail of execution, and, on the whole, a Gothic effect. Tombs, monuments, and old mosaic pavement this temple also contains; but I cannot recall its details.

The afternoon of this day we employed partly in a visit to the two tombs beside which American feet will be sure to pause. Here, in this sculptured sarcophagus, sleeps the dust of E. B. B. Here, beneath this granite cross, lie the remains of Theodore Parker. At the first, I seemed to hear the stifled sobs that mourned a private sorrow too great to take account of the public loss. For what she gave the world, rich and precious as it was, was less than that inner, unalienable jewel which she could not give but in giving herself. And he who had both, the singer and her song, now goes through the world interrogating the ranks of womanhood for her peer. Seek it not! She was unique. She died and left no fellow.

A soberer _cortege_, probably, followed Theodore to his final resting-place. The grief of poets is ecstatic, and cannot be thought of without dramatic light and shade, imagined, if not known of. A sorrowing, patient woman, faithful through all reverses, stood beside the grave of the great preacher, the mighty disputant. She remembered that it had always been peace between her and this church militant. From every raid, every foray, into the disputed grounds of theory and opinion, she kept open for him a return to the orthodoxy of domestic life. The basis of his days was a calm, well-ordered household, whose doors were opened or shut in accordance with his desire of the moment.

Would he receive his whole congregation, or a meeting of the clergy, or a company more mixed and fas.h.i.+onable? The simple, well-appointed rooms were always in order; the lights were always clear; the carpets swept; the books and engravings in nice order. The staid New England women-servants brought in the refreshments, excellent of their kind, and carefully selected for their suitableness to the occasion. The wife sat or moved un.o.btrusively among her guests; but she loved Theodore's friends, and made his visitors welcome. If Theodore had war without, and it became his business to have it, he had ever peace within. And this it was pleasant and exemplary to remember, standing beside his grave.

How often have I, in thought, linked these two graves together, striving to find a middle term or point of meeting for them both! The distant image of the spot was sacred and dear to me. The person of the one, the character of the other, were fixed among my affections. For let me say here that though I have criticised Parker's theology, adopting neither his methods nor his conclusions, of Parker himself I have never ceased to think as of a person with a grand and earnest scope, of large powers and generous nature. He was tender in large and in little, a sympathist in practice as well as a philanthropist in theory. My heart still warms and expands at the remembrance of what he was in the pulpit and at the fireside. Nor was he the less a stern moralist because he considered the ordinary theories of sin as unjust and insufficient. No one would better console you for a sin deplored, no one could more forcibly deprecate a sin contemplated. He painted his time more wicked than it was, and saw it so. A modern Dante, all in the force of prose, E. B. B. lies here like the sweet Beatrice, who was at hand when the cruel task of criticism was over, to build before the corrected vision of the great pilgrim the silvery shrines and turrets of the New Jerusalem. So will we leave them--a lesser Dante, a greater Beatrice, and one who has borne record of herself.

VENICE.

Venice, which I seek to hold fast, is already a thing of yesterday.

"Haste is of the devil," truly says the Koran, whose prophet yet knew its value. But the strokes of the pen need deliberation as much as those of the sword need swiftness. Strength goes with Time, and skill against him.

Little of either had I after a night in the cars between Florence and Venice,--hot, dusty Florence, and cool, gla.s.sy Venice,--a night of starts and stops, morsels of sleep set in large frames of uneasy waking.

The steep ascent of the Apennines is only partially descried through the darkness. It begins at Pistoia, and when it ends, Pistoia lies vertically under you, at the bottom of what seems in the darkness an abyss, in which its lights s.h.i.+ne brightly. Tunnels there are in plenty on this road, and one of these threatens us with suffocation. For the engine was unduly replenished with coal at Pistoia in view of the hard task before it, and the undigested food vented itself in unwholesome gases, which the constraints of the tunnel drove in upon us, filling the lungs with mephitic stuff which caused them to ache for more than an hour afterwards. This part of the journey was made pleasant to us by the presence of a Venetian lady, handsome, intelligent, and cordial. At Bologna we lost her, making also a long stop. The hour was three in the morning; the place, a bare railroad depot. The hour pa.s.sed there would not have been patiently endured by an American public. But Italians endure every possible inconvenience from the railway management, which is clearly conducted on _pessimistic_ principles. On reaching the cars again, another pleasant companion shortened the time with easy conversation. Not but that we dozed a little after the weary night; and the priest in the opposite compartment fell asleep over his morning prayers. But my new companion and I made our way through a shoal of general remarks to the _terra firma_ of a mutual acquaintance, in whose praises both of us grew warm. And at length we began to see marshes, and waters, and a fortress. "That is Venice," said the captain; and I replied with sincere surprise, "Is it possible?" For Venice, as approached by the railroad, makes no impression, presents no _coup d'oeil_. And this marks a precaution for which the devisers of railroads in this country may deserve praise. Being pure men of business, and not sentimentalists, they do not wish to find themselves mixed up with any emotions consequent upon the encounter of the sublime and beautiful. They cannot become responsible for any enthusiasm. And so, in their entrances and exits, they sedulously avoid the picturesque, and lead the traveller into no temptation towards stopping and lingering by the way. Of two possible routes, they, on principle, choose the more prosaic; so that the railroad traveller nowhere gets less beauty for his money than in this same Italy, the flower-garden of the world.

The arrival even in Venice becomes, therefore, vulgar and commonplace in their management. And soon one gets one's luggage out of the clutches of guardians and porters, and cheaply, in an omnibus gondola, one swashes through a great deal of middling water, landing finally at Hotel Barbesi, where breakfast and the appliances of repose are obtained.

We did not prudently devote this first day to sleep, as we ought to have done. The energy of travel was still in us, and we aroused ourselves, and went forth. The _valet de place_, with high cheek-bones, a fresh color, and vivacious eyes, led us on foot to the Place and Cathedral of St. Mark, the Ducal Palace, the Bridge of Sighs, and prisons of the condemned. We visited the great council-halls, superb with fretted gilding, and endless paintings by Tintoretto and Bellini. We saw the Lion's Mouth, into which anonymous accusations were dropped; the room of the Ten; the staircase all in white and gold, sacred to the feet of Doge and Dogaressa alone. As magnificent as is the palace, so miserable are the prisons, dest.i.tute of light, and almost of air--a series of small, close parallelograms, with a small hole for a window, opening only into a dark corridor, containing each a stony elevation, on which, perhaps, a pallet of straw was placed. Heaven forbid that the blackest criminal of our day should confront the justice of G.o.d with so poor a report to make of the mercy of man! In the dreaminess of our fatigue, we next visited a bead factory, and inspected some of its delicate operations. And then came the _table d'hote_, and with it a little whiff of toilet and hotel breeding, sufficiently irksome and distasteful. In the evening there was to be a Fresco, or procession of gondolas on the great ca.n.a.l, with lanterns and music, in honor of Prince Plomplon, who was at Danieli's hotel. Uncertain whether to engage a gondola or not, I sat in the garden balcony of Barbesi's, immediately over the ca.n.a.l. I saw the gondolas of high society flit by, gay with flags and colored lanterns, the gondoliers in full livery. Their att.i.tude in rowing is singular. They stand slanting forward, so that one almost expects to see them fall on their faces. In the gondola, however, one becomes aware of the skill and nicety with which they impel and guide their weird-looking vehicles.

The Fresco was to be at nine o'clock; but by an hour earlier the gondolas were frequent. And soon a bark, with lanterns and a placard announcing an a.s.sociation of artists, stopped beneath our balcony, while its occupants, with vigorous lungs, shouted a chorus or two in the Venetian dialect. The effect was good; but when one of the singers asked for a "_piccola bottiglia_" and proceeded, hat in hand, to collect from each of us a small contribution, we felt that such an act was rather compromising for the artists. In truth, these men were artisans, not artists; but the Italian language has but one word for the two meanings, contriving to distinguish them in other ways.

The stream of gondolas continued to thicken on the ca.n.a.l, and at nine o'clock, or thereabouts, a floating theatre made its appearance--a large platform, brilliantly lighted, and bearing upon it a numerous orchestra and chorus. The _chef d'orchestre_ was clearly visible as he pa.s.sed, energetically dividing the melody and uniting the performers. This lovely music floated up and down the quiet waters, many lesser lights cl.u.s.tering around the greater ones. Comparison seems to be the great trick of descriptive writing; but I, for my part, cannot tell what the Fresco was like. It was like nothing that I have ever seen.

And I saw it in the intervals of a leaden stupor; for, after the sleepless night and active day, the quiet of Barbesi's balcony was too much for me. Fain would I have hired a gondola, have gone forth to follow the musical crusade, albeit that to homage a Napoleon be small business for an American. But by a new sort of centaurs.h.i.+p, my chair and I were that evening one, and the idea of dividing the two presented itself only in the light of an impossibility. Roused by the exclamations of those about me, I awoke from time to time, and mechanically took note of what I have here described, returning to sleep again, until a final wrench, like the part.i.tion of soul and body, sent me with its impetus to the end of all days--bed.

The fatigue of this day made itself severely felt in the waking of the next morning. Shaking off a deadly stupor and dizziness, I arose and armed for the day's warfare. My first victim was the American consul, who, at the sight of a formidable letter of introduction, surrendered at discretion. Annexing the consul, I bore him in triumph to my gondola, but not until I had induced him to find me a lodging, which he did speedily; for of Barbesi and many francs _per diem_ I had already enough, and preferred charities nearer home to that of enriching him. I do, moreover, detest hotel life, and the black-coated varlets that settle, like so many flies, upon your smallest movement. I have more than once intrenched myself in my room, determining to starve there rather than summon in the imps of the bell. With the consul's aid, which was, I must say, freely given, I secured to myself the disposal of a snug bedroom and parlor, with a balcony leading into a music-haunted garden, full of s.h.i.+ny foliage, mostly lemon and myrtle trees, having also a convenient access to the grand ca.n.a.l. After this, we proceeded to the Church of the Frari, rich with the two monuments of t.i.tian and Canova. Both are architectural as well as sculptural. That of Canova is a repet.i.tion of his own model, executed in the well-known Vienna monument, with the addition, I thought, of a winged lion and one or two figures not included in the other. The monument of t.i.tian stands opposite to that already described. The upper portion of it presents a handsome facade enclosed in three arches, each of which contains a bas-relief of one of his great pictures. The middle one presents the a.s.sumption, in sculpture; that on the right the Entombment of Christ; that on the left the St. Peter Martyr--the picture itself being in the sacristy of the Church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo. The Frari also contains a curious and elaborate monument to a doge whose name I forget.

Above sits the doge in his ducal chair; below, four black slaves clad in white marble, their black knees showing through their white trousers, support the upper part of the monument upon their heads. Two bronze Deaths, between the doge and the slaves, bear each a scroll in white marble, with long inscriptions, which we did not read. The choir was adorned with the usual row of seats, richly carved in black walnut. From this rich and interesting temple we pa.s.sed to the Academia delle belle Arti.

This inst.i.tution contains many precious and beautiful works of art. The Venetian school is, however, to the Florentine much as Rossini's Barbiere to Dante's Divina Commedia. Here all is color, vitality, energy. The superabundance of life and of temperament does not allow the severer deliberations of thoughtful art. The finest picture of this school, the a.s.sumption of t.i.tian, is the intense embodiment of the present, an ideal moment that presupposes no antecedent and no successor. It is as startling as a sudden vision. But it is a vision of life, not of paradise. The Madonna is a grand, simple, human woman, whose att.i.tude is more rapt than her expression. She stands in the middle of the picture, upon a ma.s.s of clouds, which two pendent cherubs deliciously loop up. Above, the Eternal Father, wonderfully foreshortened, looks down upon her. Beneath, the apostles are gazing at the astonis.h.i.+ng revelation. All is in the strongest drawing, the most vigorous coloring. Yet the pale-eyed Raphaels have more of the inward heaven in them. For this is a dream of sunset, not of transfiguration.

So great a work of art is, however, a boon beyond absolute criticism.

Like a precious personality, its value settles the account of its being, however widely it may depart from the standard recognized in other things.

In the same hall is the last work of t.i.tian, a Pieta, or figure of the dead Christ upon his mother's knees. This picture is so badly placed that its effects can only be inferred, absolute glare and darkness putting out its light and shade. Far from the joyous allegro of t.i.tian's characteristic style, the coloring presents a greenish pallor, rather negative and monotonous. The composition of the picture is artistic, tonic, and harmonious; its expression high and pathetic. The ebbing tide of the great master's vitality left this pearl on the sh.o.r.e of time.

The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, by t.i.tian, is another of the famous pictures in this collection. The Virgin is represented as a maiden of ten years, ascending the steps of the temple at Jerusalem.

The figure and the steps are both of them seen in profile. Her pale-blue dress is relieved by an oblong glory which surrounds her from head to foot. More famous is a large Paul Veronese, representing Christ at supper in the house of the Pharisee. The richness of the Venetian costumes, the vigor and vitality of the figures, give this picture its great charm. It is no nearer to Christ and Jerusalem "than I to Hercules." A large painting by a French artist, in this hall, replaces the great Paul Veronese taken to Paris by Napoleon I.,--the Cena,--and, to my mind, replaces it very poorly. The huge paintings of Tintoretto are among the things that amaze one in Venice. How one hand, guided by one brain, could, in any average human life, have covered such enormous s.p.a.ces of canvas, is a problem and a puzzle. The paintings themselves are full of vigor, color, and variety. But one naturally values them less on account of their great number. Of course, in the style of Raphael or Perugino, a single life could not have produced half of them.

The Venetian school is sketchy, and its figures often have more toilet than anatomy.

I am almost ashamed to speak of these pictures at all, since I speak of them so inadequately. Yet, gentle reader, all is not criticism that criticises, all is not enthusiasm that admires. Copious treatises are written on these subjects by people who know as little of them as is possible for a person of average education. Americans have especially to learn that a general tolerable intelligence does not give a man special knowledge in matters of art. Among the herd of trans-Atlantic travellers who yearly throng these galleries, they know most who pretend least to know.

A brief interval of rest and dinner enabled us to visit the Armenian Convent at San Lazzaro. For this excursion two rowers were requisite.

Starting at five P. M., we reached the convent in half an hour. It stands upon an island which its walls and enclosures fill. The porter opens to us. We have a letter of introduction from Ex-Consul Howills to Padre Giacomo, and bring also a presentation copy of the late consul's work on Venice. The padre receives us with courteous gravity. We make acquaintance with his monkey before we make acquaintance with him. The monkey leaps on the neophyte's hat, tears off a waxen berry, and eats it. His master thoughtfully leads us through the dreamy rooms and pa.s.sages of the convent. Here is the room that Byron occupied; here is his name, written in Armenian in his own hand. Here also is Prince Plonplon's name, written by him in the book of ill.u.s.trious visitors.