Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-05-24
WORTH SATURDAY, MAY 189O--TWELYE PAGES

| treasure and equal if not superior, treasure in
| painting and sculpture. This is simply state
ment of fact, the exact truth OF winch any oo-
servant and well informed European traveller
| will admit One reads of her ''domes and min
arets'' until the mind horizon is fretted with the
| flashing silhouettes of some magical cry OF the
ton. no more minarets than New York. Anyone
can count those on the fingers OF both hands'
Such as she has are squstty and Plncneoi as
though the appropriation had suddenly gwen
out and the builders had knocked on rlght
there, awaiting the funds of some future golden
age. The enthusiastically famous cathedral OF
ST. Marx is exceeded in beauty, proportion,
stateliness and majesty by 500 religious struct-
ures in the United States. The crumbnng,
architectural
LAUGHING STOCK OF THE WEST
is better building in every respect, and with
its mammoth Caryatides and tremendous pol
ished granite columns, presents a more impos-
ing facade than the restored" ducal
palace OF Venice; There are 1900 stone
and marble bridges in private gardens
and grounds, and within the public parks, OF
the United States, more expensive, beautiful,
and more chaste expressions of ideas in stone
art, than can be found in the most raved over
canal bridge here. Senator Farwen OF Illinois
built statehouse for Texas, that grand great
Tom Ochiltree, infinitely vaster, statelier, more
symmetric and a better expression of true archl-
tectural opulence and magnifcence that any
one who ever lived in Venice ever saw. And when
il comes to the matter of palaces who that has
ever read has not been fired with glowing de-
scriptions of the countless transcendent palaces
of the queen city by the sea-. - tell you there
has never been more cruel or infamous imposl-
ton in the history of cities and the literature OF
travel. San Francisco, Denver, even Kansas City,
St. Louis, Minneapolis and St. Paul, Chica-
go, Cincinnati, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, Wash
ington, Baltimore, New YORK or Boston each
possess more palatial residences, which never
even got into the Sunday papers, than this pre-
tentious, water-soaked old fishing and plratical
port ever contained; and there are half
bup rod nal n n dozen
York and New England counties, could name,
where Americans have built palaces for homes,
costing more money, representing more chaste
and exquisite conception OF the purest form OF
architectural art, and, in every manner IN which
they may be contemplated, representing each,
per Sc, more refined and impressive monument
to generous wealth and perfect civilization, than
the most splendid single example all Venice can
show And this, too, at Venice best. She has
been repeatedly likened to palmyra of the
sea- The voiceless dead never so suffered by
impudent comparison. Where now stand the
huts of the Thadmor epherds, 800 years before
Venice was known stood the most majestic
monuments of architectural perfection ever
known to man. No structure that ever added
luster to the flame and magn1hcence' OF Venice
is hidden by the sands of time or engulfed by
the waves of the sea. Every one, dilapidated or
restored, " occupied as
RAT-swARMING HOTEL
or let to modern nouveaux riches who strut and
cackle to attract notice to their modern rocker
les or whether utilized as barracks for garlic
eating spider-waisted soldiery, still, de-
serted, mouldy and silent, echoing only to the
carnivals of the ghosts of desolate past, are
here for your inspection to-day. Come and look
at them. See them and observe how they shrink
and dwindle, as though you looked from the wrong
lenses of your glass. See them and reflect how
drunken with the wine of hyperbole and how
blinded by the glamor of this zephyr blown
region of romance have all that myriad host
who have come and written and gone, we Will
trust, to do secret penace.
Then what a dreary old mess of decay it is to
us who come with our eyes open and our senses
healthy love for all things clean, good and new!
True the landward breeZes bring the balm and
thyme Of Southern spring. Where in our own
loved land do the meadows, the forests and the
hedge rows fail with their subtle, tender affairs
of the awakening outer world? True, as you
stand on the campanile of st. Marks, or idly
float in your gondola upon the outer lagoons.
your face lovingly after tender voyages
your yacht along the glowing Pacific coast, in
score of bayous along the dreamy gulf, even in
your old ramshackle row-boat on the Chicago
breakwater, when Grabbing on the Chesa-
peake if Cumming for bluefsh along Long
island shores, in your cat-boat at Newport, or
floating in the variest tub of dory anywhere
from Cape Cod to Grand Manan. But still it is
true that you have never before seen, and will
never again see. that wave-washed spot where
the very teeth of the sea seem so relentlessly
gnawing and eating that which, being con-
sumed, so pollutes its remorseless destroyer. In
port, molo, basin, canal; on quays, campi, rive,
fondamenti; in every article OF clothing you
wear: and in every article of food you
eat; there is an endless odor and taste of that
omnipresent and unvanquishsble tyrant of the
sea-bilge waterl Ride in gondola and your
pores become its clammy matrices. Lean upon
the marble tables in the gaudy cafes and its
fetid breath is in the very stone. Crepe your
way to your camera de letto for sleep, the very
walls are widowed with its rime; you gasp and
wheeze all night, as though in old ships
hold, from its vapors and you awaken in the
morning limp as mold of dough from its
stealthy saturation and filtration through sheets
and blankets into your enervated body. 1t
ocZes and shines over marble steps and under
marble arches; it perspires through the COM
plexions of Veronese's portraits; trickles among
the allegories of Giorgicne; exudes from the
frescoes of Titan, and stands like gummy
dew upon the entablatures of Tintorettol
EDGAR L. WAKEMAE, y