Morning journal and courier., 1890-05-24

At venicc-HAis DisApP
 KrindIsl In an Adriaxic COnster-The
 Truth About Venice-Facss Versus
 Tradition - A Companion With
 Some American Cities-Some Famed
 Bniidinss-Dreary Structures.
 VENICE, Italy, May 3.
 To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 It Is not pleasant to be ranked among those cynics who go about the old world shy ing iconoclastio bricks at the mystic fabrics which poets and painters have more than half created, and which the rest of the worlds friendly fancy has clothed in warm and glowing embellishments. But however impressionahle and sympathetic one may be. the ideal Venice, the complete composite of the expectant wanderer's dream, is another and better thing thaa the possessed actuali" ty. One hesitates in such q confession. It seems like setting oDeh own judgment, per. ception, feeling, against those of myrisds who have come bsfore. rhess have como to worship; parted from Venice to adore. Bat so surely as I would write all my life in jus- tice, truth snd klndliness, never elsewhere came with transports of expectancy to meet with such bitter sadness in disappointment.
 Every one hopes for travel and It's peren- nial mental feass. Everybody sets as his ul- tima Thule some region, place or object, to come to, know and enjoy. All my life Ven- ice was that transcendent point of attain ment for mo. Every song that had sung its praises had read. In every one I thought saw between the lines strain of regret that aip oorId r5o ar5 measure in adequate adoration. Standing before the great paintings of Venetian life and scenes, have seen fairer city behind the best the masters had done. For score and half years I had gone on building a City of Delight, fair Armidean vision of enhancement. far away, radiant place of feckless air, of tender skies, of balmy zaph- yrs, of colorful tints thrilling with living light, of domed and minareted palaces float ing upon waters of translucent, hyaline hue. This is the Venice we all have made. There is no such oity this side of the Utmost Isle. came from Brindisi by an Adriatio coast CT. We skirted Apulia, passed Bari, Anco. na, Rlmini, and at Ravenna were alongside the lower region of lagoons. Passing Pc della Maestro we had the whole upper coast region of lagoons from Venice,
 ''Far as Chioggia's sails and resds,'
 in view, and as the city gradually rose high. CT and wider out of the water, after thread ing our way through maze of vessels with strange colored sails, quaint craft from Chi oggia with high peaks and sterns like the an cient galleons, end clumsy felucoas from Crete and the Ionian islands, came to anchor inside the Malamoooo pass and was landed from black and dirty gondola, propelled by the very heart of the city. That Venetian | quay greeted me with every disgusting arc. ma known to the Liverpool and London docks, and the filthy wharves along South aud West streets, New York, with Coentes slip, the Wallabout region, and "Applt Mary" of ancient and aromatic memory in' cluded. I could have sat down there in the ooze and slime of those foul marble stepi and wept for disappointment and shame. 1 had come by the sea that all the imagery beauty, mysticism of the sea might enhance the glory of the approach to my visionary idol. had worshipped goddess and found her fish wife. And write in no captions or trihing spirit when say that the hurt o it all was so great that sneaked back into dola; was rowed to the railway station; tool tho first train from the city towards Milan shutting out with closed eyes these unhappy first impressions; rode to the first station in land which hid the Adriatic from sight; ani then returned over the great bridge of arch es, the way all other expectant travellers come; hoping thus to fad myself so wrong in my first seeing and feeling that the glori' ous city of dreamful restfulness and deligh would be there awaiting me. It may be thts will seem foolish, trivial action. It wal not. I did it to be honest and just. I found precisely what had first discovered-a hot, stifing, stinking city, rotting at its base crumbling at it's domes; gaudy bawd ir bastard architecture, and Haunting, purile coloring between; alive with lazzaroni; hate full with importuning gondoliers; damp dank, moldy with ooze and salt and slime. The truth about Venice is that, whatever might have been it's charm and glory in tht days of the doges, 1t presents but two as pects for study to the visitor of to day l One is of that intense solemnity awakened by the contemplation of the beautiful dying or dead. The other is one of ludiorousnssi pitiable as that pa ;hetic contempt with whicf we view the antics and makeshifts of sRob l ert Macaire" upon the stage, or follow th' disgusting baseness of the ssDuke of Bilge water" with shaking sides and moist eye
 throughout the later adventures of ssHuckle