VENICE, MEDIÆVAL AND MODERN.
CHAPTER I.
TO-DAY AND LONG AGO.
The Venice which one visits to-day is so curiously a part and not a part of the ancient Venice of which we dream, that one feels, when in that sea-enveloped and fairy-like city, a strange sense of duality,—of being a veritable antique and an equally veritable modern. He has a genuine sympathy with the past, and regrets that he has not the enchanter's wand to bring it all back again,—long enough, at least, for him to revel in its magnificence.
If he believes in reincarnation, he is speedily convinced that he was once a Venetian indeed; else how could he feel so much at home, and how love Venice as he does! And yet, alas! he cannot quite lose his modern point of view.
The first emotion is all delight, and a delight that never loses its thrill; for until the time comes for reflection, we are under the charm of a perfect atmosphere, of skies of liquid blue, tinged at times with crimsons, gold, and violets, such as come only from Nature's loom; of music and soft, fascinating speech; of mysterious labyrinths and sunlit spaces,—in a word, under the spell of Venice. And if Time brings to us the thought of the other side of the picture,—the decay which is stealthily doing its sad work, the grayness when it is gray, and all the pathos which ever attends a queen uncrowned,—yet through all and above all is the joy and pleasure which having once been ours, we are resolved to keep.
To sail from Trieste in an evening of the spring, and make one's first approach to Venice in the early morning, affords an experience that one should not forego. With the clear sun rising behind, surrounded by the marvellous waters blushing in every color of the rainbow beneath his rays, and the pearly tinted city lifting itself from this many-colored sea, as if in welcome, every poetic and artistic sense is filled to overflowing.
Can this coloring be described in words? Alas! no. For when the sea is likened to liquid fire, broken into scintillations and spread over a quivering background of sea-blue and sea-green waves, the half has not been said. When the eye rests on some far-away sand, dun and sombre in the distance, what vividness of flaming red and glorious orange comes out in the middle ground, while nearer the blues and greens are mingled with a shimmering silver! The atmosphere itself seems tinted by reflections from Aurora's garlands, and the strangely luminous blue sky smiles over all.
"Then lances and spangles and spars and bars
Are broken and shivered and strewn on the sea;
And around and about me tower and spire
Start from the billows like tongues of fire."
To the south stretches the long island reaching from the Porto di Lido to Malamocco, its sands now sparkling like gems. The fort of San Niccolo guards the entrance to the Lagoon; the little island of St. Elena is passed, and Murano is seen to the north. But glances only can be spared for these; for Venice itself, with its towers and domes, its belfries, spires, and crosses, its palaces all lacework and arabesques, rises above, while all around, on the canal, numbers of light, curiously shaped boats and sombre gondolas are gathering,—their boatmen clamoring for news and customers.
Descending, as in a dream, we enter a gondola for the first time. The Giardini Pubblici is passed, and soon one stands on the Piazzetta and enters the Piazza of St. Mark, feeling as if he had passed through a living, moving transformation scene, and been dropped into the middle of the twelfth century. And why not? For at this early hour the Piazza seems consecrated to the Past. The few boatmen, fruit-sellers, and lazzaroni who are there might belong to the Middle Ages as well as to the nineteenth century.