Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-05-31

The women OF Venice have square heads,
with wide foreheads, deeply sunken and lus-
trous eyes, with wide, arching brows which
meet, tiny ears, and hair the texture, color
and quality of farm horses black tail
whose outer and exposed filaments have be-
come rusty, dusty and gray in fly and plow-
ing time. There are three classes from which
to choose your types of Venetian women,
and from none OF these will YOU find the
ideal faces and forms Of poetic painting or
the artists pencil. The first comprise the
women of the aristocracy; thin, tall, plain,
patient, grave, Hstless, ambitionless, vacu-
GUS, silent. They remind one of the Jewesses
of Algiers in their languid manner, but pos
sess none of their lustrous, almost pathetic
beauty. They seem to exist as
MERELY PASSIVE BEINGS
in hateful present. dolefully regarding
the dead glories OF q vanished past. In the
ping. suuare-bodied wives and daughters Of
the small dealers, relic showmen and petty
politicians ofmodern Venice. They are loud.
voiced, wide-jawed, brazen-faced; regard
the social revolution which has put them at
the front of the decayed aristocracy as
gladsome, heaven-sent dispensation; and
mimic the last years Paris and London
fashions with an afiuence and enthusiasm
worthy of their extraordinary vigor and as
surance. The third class is of course the
lowly. Its women are bare-headed, bare
breasted creatures with pudgy little faces,
tiny noses and eyes, tiny mouths with
pluckered, protruding lips, necks with
tendency to goitre, and with no more perlec-
ton of symmetry about their bunchy,
souaw-like forms than you will find
pf
women from Bulgaria and lower
Hungary who are weekly landed at Castle
Garden in New York. These glory in
immense fat, crescent-shaped earrings,
metal bracelets upon arms and ankles, huge
strings of gaudy Venetian beads, garlic and
babies. This is not pleasant picture, but
it is a true one All these faces have more
or less of a plaintive look about the eyes
and drawn pathetic expression about the
mouth. This, the subtle essence of so uni
versal poetic adulation, is ascribed by the
more realistic physicians of Venice to ca
tarrh. 1 have their word for it that it is an
universal ailment in water-logged Venice.
The only specimen of the tramp species L
have seen in all Italy, though myself sn un-
blushing tramp and likely to meet the
brotherhood if it existed here, was on the
way from Campi Veteres to Potenza. We
met at a wsyside shrine. After succeeding
in convincing him that there was a natural
affinity existing between us, 1 shared the
contents of my lunch wallet with him.
then made him partially to understand the
Iuxuriousness, versatility and numerousness
of the American tramp, and, on our way
into the old earthquake-shaken city, he e1-
planned with the excellent analysis and un-
erring logic with which all tramps discuss
sociology, why our kind were quite un-
known in Italy.
A TRAMP's LOGIC.
The reasons he gave were, briefly, that he
who had no work to do, or he who preferred
not to engage in toll, in his country from
choice and custom instantly became a beg
gar or bandit. He could adopt neither pro-
fession, because bandit required certain
amount of bravery and involved danger.
Being a successful beggar made malforma-
tion, or unpleasant distortion and posing,
necessary. Another important reason for
the non-existence of tramps, he thought,
was a certain sharp spur of necessity which
goaded men of desuetude to at least move
ment in rigorous Northern climes. In such
lands as Italy sunshine and sleep were a
good part of food itself; little actual nourish-
ment was requisite where there was little
sleep out-of-doors nearly all the year round;
wine was cheaper than good water; prac-
tically no clothing was required; and, al
together, sentimental tourists provided
handsomely for all. For himself, he had a
soul above begging, below the banditti, and
so loved all his adored Italy that he aspired
to know it from the true travellers stand
point. To further this aspiration he re-
paired pedal indurations by day and impro-
vised pastoral epics by night, science and
poesy, as it were, wandering hand in hand
through the sunny ways of Italy.
Millions of men and women reading Mil
toms lines,
Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where tn Etrurian shades
High overarch'd embower-
have seen the vision that came in a swift
longing to him to again dwell among the
Franciscan monks in the monastery near the
top of the mountain above Florence, and
yearned, as he yearned, for the cool depths
of its restiul shade. 1t is the one place in
all Italy, save beautiful Palermo, which full
fills preconceived notions. Your journey is
eighteen miles from Florence, up the lovely
valley of the Arno, where are enbowered in
vine and flowers hundreds of villas occupied
by the Italian aristocracy and nobility. A
broad carriage road leads all the way. Halt
ing at the little village of Tosi, from which
one was formerly conveyed to the mountain
retreat by sledge drawn by oxen, an hour is
passed at refreshments and in enchanting
views of the cities, valleys, plains and rivers
below, when the journey is resumed up the
Pratomagno mountain, through groves of
the most magnificent beech and chestnut
trees in the world. The songs of birds, the
Eolian music of forest breezes, and endless
lndi nf fa1 ha tnh
all the way from Tosi, that suddenly and
without warning you are at the enchanting
mountain eerie. 1t comprises but a few
acres of level meadow through which runs q
long avenue of majestic trees, and at the
end OF this stands the lichened and gray old
mass of buildings, more famous from three
lines by Milton than any other similar spot
in the world.
AN ANCIENT ORDER.
The order Of Vallombrosans, founded in
the early part OF the 11th century by Gu
alberto, OF Florence-who, prevented by a
pious impulse from Staying the murderer of
his brother, though at his mercy, in thank
fulness to God became a religious devotee,
and eventually the founder oil a great order
became one of the richest and most pow
erfuI in Italy; and this one old monastery
held their chief treasure. For this order CT
ambue painted his priceless Madonna; Pc.
rugino, his marvellous Assumption. But
the French Revolution almost ruined the
order. When Napoleon's council de-
bated whether they should spare the
Vallombrosans, because they kept the
wolves thInned in the mountains, it
was asked, "Shall we have monks
or wolves?" "Wolves" was the
answer; and Victor Emanuel in 1860, at the
Italian disestablishment, completed their
extinction here. The place is now used as
q government agricultural school, with
corps of resident professors, and just above