Venice - Page 2

has spent his life in laying down the principles of form and
scolding people for departing from them; but it throbs and
flashes with the love of his subject--a love disconcerted and
abjured, but which has still much of the force of inspiration.
Among the many strange things that have befallen Venice, she has
had the good fortune to become the object of a passion to a man
of splendid genius, who has made her his own and in doing so has
made her the world's. There is no better reading at Venice
therefore, as I say, than Ruskin, for every true Venice-lover can
separate the wheat from the chaff. The narrow theological spirit,
the moralism à tout propos, the queer provincialities and
pruderies, are mere wild weeds in a mountain of flowers. One may
doubtless be very happy in Venice without reading at all--without
criticising or analysing or thinking a strenuous thought. It is
a city in which, I suspect, there is very little strenuous
thinking, and yet it is a city in which there must be almost as
much happiness as misery. The misery of Venice stands there for
all the world to see; it is part of the spectacle--a
thoroughgoing devotee of local colour might consistently say it
is part of the pleasure. The Venetian people have little to call
their own--little more than the bare privilege of leading their
lives in the most beautiful of towns. Their habitations are
decayed; their taxes heavy; their pockets light; their
opportunities few. One receives an impression, however, that life
presents itself to them with attractions not accounted for in
this meagre train of advantages, and that they are on better
terms with it than many people who have made a better bargain.
They lie in the sunshine; they dabble in the sea; they wear
bright rags; they fall into attitudes and harmonies; they assist
at an eternal conversazione. It is not easy to say that
one would have them other than they are, and it certainly would
make an immense difference should they be better fed. The number
of persons in Venice who evidently never have enough to eat is
painfully large; but it would be more painful if we did not
equally perceive that the rich Venetian temperament may bloom
upon a dog's allowance. Nature has been kind to it, and sunshine
and leisure and conversation and beautiful views form the greater
part of its sustenance. It takes a great deal to make a
successful American, but to make a happy Venetian takes only a
handful of quick sensibility. The Italian people have at once the
good and the evil fortune to be conscious of few wants; so that
if the civilisation of a society is measured by the number of its
needs, as seems to be the common opinion to-day, it is to be
feared that the children of the lagoon would make