The Grand Canal - Page 2

great museum--they are even
themselves to a certain extent the objects of exhibition. It is
in the wide vestibule of the square that the polygot pilgrims
gather most densely; Piazza San Marco is the lobby of the opera
in the intervals of the performance. The present fortune of
Venice, the lamentable difference, is most easily measured there,
and that is why, in the effort to resist our pessimism, we must
turn away both from the purchasers and from the vendors of
ricordi. The ricordi that we prefer are gathered
best where the gondola glides--best of all on the noble waterway
that begins in its glory at the Salute and ends in its abasement
at the railway station. It is, however, the cockneyfied Piazzetta
(forgive me, shade of St. Theodore--has not a brand new café
begun to glare there, electrically, this very year?) that
introduces us most directly to the great picture by which the
Grand Canal works its first spell, and to which a thousand
artists, not always with a talent apiece, have paid their
tribute. We pass into the Piazzetta to look down the great
throat, as it were, of Venice, and the vision must console us for
turning our back on St. Mark's.

We have been treated to it again and again, of course, even if we
have never stirred from home; but that is only a reason the more
for catching at any freshness that may be left in the world of
photography. It is in Venice above all that we hear the small
buzz of this vulgarising voice of the familiar; yet perhaps it is
in Venice too that the picturesque fact has best mastered the
pious secret of how to wait for us. Even the classic Salute waits
like some great lady on the threshold of her saloon. She is more
ample and serene, more seated at her door, than all the copyists
have told us, with her domes and scrolls, her scolloped
buttresses and statues forming a pompous crown, and her wide
steps disposed on the ground like the train of a robe. This fine
air of the woman of the world is carried out by the well-bred
assurance with which she looks in the direction of her old-
fashioned Byzantine neighbour; and the juxtaposition of two
churches so distinguished and so different, each splendid in its
sort, is a sufficient mark of the scale and range of Venice.
However, we ourselves are looking away from St. Mark's--we must
blind our eyes to that dazzle; without it indeed there are
brightnesses and fascinations enough. We see them in abundance
even while we look away from the shady steps of the Salute. These
steps are cool in the morning, yet I don't know that I can
justify my excessive fondness for them any better than I can
explain a hundred of the other vague infatuations with which
Venice sophisticates the spirit. Under such an