The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-02-19
RUSKIN AND VENICE.
GRATEFUL FOR HIS SERVICES, UT
failing

From, tho Position TO Which He HELPED
The Municipal Council of Venice, be
sides voting a message of coincidence tC
the late MI. Ruskin's family, have re-
solved to place a memorial upon the
house which he occupied in the "silen1
city in the sea- while preparing him
self to write 1.-The Stones of Venice. y
If ever community had reason to be
grateful to a benefactor it is surely that
which dwells beneath the pearly skies
of the Venetian lagoons. The splendlo
harvest which it reaps every year from
thousands of English and American
tourists is traceable directly to tho
vogue established by the great English
critic. 1t is true that not all the Anglo
Saxon visitors are familiar or even ac-
quainted with the swinging march II
the easy prose in which he glorlfles inc
great act of faith that made st. Mark
and shows how every inch OF it--slone
and fresco and Observation-Disclosures the
scrolls which teach men to live and die
yet Ruskn is the original cause Of their
presence beneath the shadow of its
white dome. Venice, no doubt, had n"1
prophets before him-Byrcn and Rogers,
Canaletto and Turner. Ruskin has him
self told us that his Venice had been IN
great part created for him by Turner,
who had received its traditions from
the author of THE Bridge of Signs
But even in those days the city was
comparatively inaccessible. The ait
gence of the first half of the century
wae an even sorer trial to the flesh than
the travelling carriage or the post chaise
was to the pocket, and it was left to
the railway to accomplish what neither
tho tints of Turner nor the verses of
Byron had been able to effect. Since 1t
has become possible to travel to Venice
and back for few pounds it has been
overrun with tourists, who have done
much to make it busy and prosperous
something also to spoil and vulgarize
it, Great ocean liners call there; fusey
little steamers pant up and down the
broader water ways, further blackenlng
the dingy marbel palaces, and the trafi1c
on the Malamocco is such that it's wa
tiers are often as turhid as those of the
Thames.
Cheap modern shops and bowling
newsboye go some way toward the dis
ilusionment of the visitor who arrives
with his head full of poetry and the
Council Of Ten, dreaming Of Marino Fa-
Hero and the escape of Casanova. Yet
In
the silence and repose, the dignified
consciousness of history which sat up
on Venice when Ruskin first saw it
which, indeed, it retained until well in
to the sixties. The grand city which
had been mother land of the empire
were mourning because she was under
the heel of the conqueror, and from lack
of political hope came commercial de-
cay. A great town must either live or
die, and Venice, with her glorious past
her far stretching memories of dominion
beyond the sea, her wonderful sense of
art, her architectural triumphs coming
down from Byzantine times through
Gothic to the Renaissance, was dying.
She was becoming a mere museum, like
Bruges, once her rival, a fallen power,
with grass-grown streets, and canals
upon which an oar rarely splashed. 1t
is, unluckily, true that the commercial
and manufacturing Venice of to-day
has sometimes been a trife too much
inclined to value the things of the mar
ket place to the despite of those matters
upon which her fame still rests. One
man has before now, created Shelf
field; but we shall never again see that
peculiar combination of political in
sight, maritime power, geographical
situation, and love of art that created
Venice, and enabled her to despoil the
decayng Byzantine world of treasures
which are still the delight Of all who
can appreciate gorgeous color
1t would be idle, of course, to deny |
that even when she had about her many |
of her now legendary glories Venice did |
not appeal to every mind or impress |
every eye She failed to move Sir Phil |
lp Sidney to enthusiasm; John Evelyn |
went into no Ruskinian rapturee. Other |
travellers, new and old, have found the |
Grand Canal muddy, and the black gon-
dolas funereal. The truth is that Venice |
is. one of those places that need to be
lived in to be loved and understood,
city for Amsterdam, after all, re-
sembles it only in the number of it's
canals,) it has charms impossible for
the hasty visitor to seze-skies of pearl
and opal, gray waters touched some
times with rosy flush. marbles vary
ing from dazzling white to dull opaque
hues that might not be out of place in
London. In rain, in storm, in sunshine
here is always something new in the
aspect of Venice, some variation of the
point of view, some mysterious link be-
.ween the sympathetic observer and
he dazzling, elusive, tantalizing city
which holds him in spell realized and
enjoyed but never SUCCESSFULLY analysed.
London Standard.
A TRAVELLED TRAVELLING BAG. |
A Portland woman tells this story,
which may have a moral; Several years