The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-01-02

towns, so picturesque at d ulSldlice use
 their charm when we approach. Povi- glia is nothing now but a large official house and church; Malamocco is still
 worth visiting, a fragment of Venice in
 miniature, with it's little square, it's
 faded cathedral, it's silent canal, tis
 bald and ancient houses, But Poviglia
 was once crowded with buildings to the
 waters edge. It was a city in the
 eleventh century, and it gave in pomp
 to Venice her ill-fated doge, Pietro Fra
 donico. In 1879 it's inhabitants fled to
 Venice to escape the cruelty of the
 Genoese, and though they returned,
 Poviglia was never the same again.
 It's long drawn feud with Malamocco
 began, ending with the theft from the
 former of its famous miraculous cruci-
 flxion which became the pride of the pi-
 ratical Malamocco. Such passions,
 such events, seem far away indeed as
 we glide to-day between the depopula-
 ted shores.
 Brilliant indeed must have been life
 on the lagoons when each of these lit
 tie islands had it's cathedral, its monas-
 tic buildings, it's crowded towns, it's
 golden book of nobility. In the north
 SIl IdSOOll llcIC etlC tlli M tAcii' "~'AN
 Burano, far to the south the incompar-
 able beauty of Chioggia. But the cen
 tral islands-with the exception of san
 Lazzaro and the scarlet walls of it's Ar
 menian monastery, where Byron took
 refuge--are sadly decayed and pro-
 famed.
 But the loveliness of sea and sky re-
 deem the lost treasures of the lagoon. If it has lost it's Titians and it's Bor-
 done, it has still its faded buoys, as rosy as the intensest feathers on lorys breast, still its rich-painted sails, like tropical butterflies; still the white and pink walls of it's ruined islands, still the exquisite verdure of its lidi, so precious in a Venetian landscape Even the red tiled sheds of the iron works on Sant' Elena-for whose church some of the most admirable pictures now in the Brera at Milan were originally panted-even these monstrosities give gay note of orange at sunset. Under the enormous arc of sky everything takes it's harmonious place; all the lines are great curves, all is practically sea and sky, with just here and there. at the right point. a line of tender color,
 It is in the afternoon that the lagoon begins to clothe itself in a loveliness which is absolutely unique, and which | transcends the painters or the writer's | powers of delineation. All that either | can do is to note, with excitement and | despair, some of the protean effects | which evolve themselves at every side. | Now the sharp pointed sails some with | the fantastic Chioggian wind gauges at | their tops, pass on the burning blue like exotic insects. Over the whole ga nut of color there suddenly flushes q dim change; it is the tide that turns, bringing a puff of wind with it. This new breeze rumples the rich sails till they look like shot silk. It brings up on the horizon white domes of cumulus, against which the island companies shine whiter still Now becomes ap- parent the subtle movement of the submarine rivers of the lagoon, and the water, oily smooth over it's depths, grows glaucous- greenish where the beds of sea grass rise almost to the surface. The courses of these mysteri- ous rivers are marked by piles, which look like bundles of gigantic asparagus
  times rises jauntity poised on long stalk, a grass green lantern.
 The gondola itself becomes an ee- ment in the complicated beauty of the afternoon. Among the metallic effects of sea and sky this astonishing object, as you sit in it, is always vaguely the central one The sunlight flashes in gold on it's lateral sea horses, the bril- liant steel prov Cor ferro) gleams like silver; the best-apponted private gon dolas still carry an end aboard richly gilt, a bright carpet, and often bou 1uet of gay flowers in the lamp holder. . The tall gondolier stands up like a white statue against the sky The se cret of the extraordinary luminosity of = presently explains itself by i the intense upward reflection from the sea. A blaze of light thrown down, an equal blaze reverberated upward-it is n this struggle and warfare of lights hat the afternoon proceeds, with lus- er that burnishes the whites and deep ms the blues, while it intensfies each passing touch of iridescent pink and lamings affron yellow
 When the long pageant of the days lecline is ready to begin on the lagoon ts earliest steps are marked by a ces- ,ation of violet color. Everything be- omes dove-gray and white, as if na- ure withdrew in order to make her urther approach douby sensational. This is the moment to turn back from he islands and the lidi to the great |reaming city. As the sun sinks in the vest Venice is in shadow, except the ong and still brilliant line of the Riva egli Schiavone, closing in the pacific | narble campanile of San Pietro di Cas- clio. Presently the lower sky turns rimrose color, and the blue lines of the , eIicate Euganeah hills come out behind [. The lagoon is now steel-gray, with ilken stripes of palest green upon it's urface, and the floating masses of tam led sea grass, lately invisible, turn eep olive-brown in shadow. If a Nal mocco boat fits by with it's russet sail ) the west it looks like flame run ing on the waters. But sunset itself is ow upon us, and from the despairing .. ngers of the artist pencil or pen must III. With certain evanescent phases of ! le delirium of beauty no human art l m dare to deal.--Edmund Gosse in the | s CIV York Independent %