romance. The history of the city, legendary and actual, is steeped
in the romance of the sea. Wherever we wander through the town, in
the churches, by the monuments, squares, bridges and quays, among the
islands in the lagoon, on the sea-beaten sand of the Lido, when we
hear the beat of the hammers in the Arsenal, in the very names of the
streets--we meet the sea, and stories of the sea, and have all the
pleasure and charm a boy has when he reads of ocean adventure, and
feels on his cheek the salt wind from the sea. I will only take one
well-known example. Walking in the neighbourhood of the Church of Santa
Maria Formosa, I happened to look up to the name of the street. It was
called after the guild of workers who made the bridal chests and jewel
boxes for the Venetian maidens. It was here they lived and wrought. But
they were not only workmen, but sailors trained for war. And as I saw
the name, I remembered the story of the brides of Venice, twelve of
whom were each year, on the Feast of the Purification, dowered by the
State. It happened one year that pirates from Trieste, knowing this
custom, stole in at night to the Island of San Pietro di Castello, and
hid in the low bushes near the water. When the brides, carrying their
boxes of gems and money, were among the peaceful throng in the Church,
these bold bad men seized them and bore them away to the port of
Caorle, and there, landing with the spoil, lit their fires and took to
feasting. All Venice rose to pursue them, but the Chest and Box-Makers
were the first, with that fierce swiftness which belonged to Venetian
war, to take to their boats and pursue the ravishers; and outsailing
all the rest, rescued the damsels and slew the villains as they were
drinking round their fires. Returning with the rest, the Doge Candiano
asked them what reward they would have from the State--and they
answered: “Only that the Doge should visit in procession their Church
of Santa Maria Formosa on the anniversary of the Day of the Brides.”
Everywhere in the city such romantic stories spring up from church and
square, palace and bridge; and their historical charm is born of the
sea.
In conclusion, I may write a little word on the sensational charm of
Venice seated in the hearing of the sea waves, and adorned for worship
by the beauty of her water-world. The word sensational here brings no
reproach; it only means that the vivid impressions made on the senses
are more numerous, varied, and intense in Venice than elsewhere.
Each of them is accompanied with a spiritual passion as intense as
the sensible impression. The imagination is incessantly kindled into
creation by what it sees.
I will bring together, to illustrate this, what I saw in one day
when I went to Torcello. We started early, on a lovely morning. As
we rounded the angle of Murano we saw far away, and filling the line
of the horizon, the rare vision of the peaks of the Dolomites. Snow
lay on them, but snow transfigured by distance into ethereal light.
Fine bars of vapour lay across them, floating free, as if they were
the battlements of fairyland. Below, their buttresses and flanks fell
into the plain, blue as the heaven above them. Seen thus, across the
dazzling lagoon, they made that impression of farness and mystery, of
a land of enchanting secrets, of ethereal hope taking ethereal form,
which is part of the magic which rises like a wizard vapour from the
lagoons. The mountain glory is transfigured into a spiritual glory, and
the soul loses its conscious life in a drift of dreams.
Then, through the winding of the dark piles, through the shallows
haunted by sea birds, we came to Torcello. Torcello has been described
by a master hand, and I will not follow him; but when we had visited
the well-known places we went down along the banks to the large arm of
the sea beside the island. There was not a sound, save the cry of a
scythe in the coarse reeds, as we sat on the flowery grass. The place
was once full of human life, of wealth, and labour; it was now the
very home of desolation. Deep sadness--the sense of all the might and
splendour of the earth passing away into the elements, of nature only
living, and living in regret--filled the heart. And the sensation was
as different from that with which we had begun the day, as the glory
of the mountains was from the wild sea-marsh where we sat, and the
sorrowful salt water stealing by.
We left Torcello and went on to Burano, a small island about a mile
from Torcello. The men are fishers, the women lace-makers. A few canals
traverse it, and it has a large population. It belongs to itself alone,
and the indwellers have kept their distinct type for centuries. For
centuries they have been poor, rough, and helpful to one another. A
British working man would think their life starvation. It is an austere
struggle for existence; but on the day I went to see them they had a
festa. Baldassare Galuppi, whom Browning celebrated, was a native of
the island, and this was his centenary. To honour this half-genius all
the inhabitants cheerfully struck work, and turned out in their best
array. The canals, the streets, were crowded; the market-place was full
of booths and rejoicing folk. In the church the preacher was improving
the occasion. A local poet had written a sonnet on Galuppi, and it was
hung up at the corner of every street. Illustrated broadsheets with
Galuppi’s portrait and his life were sold on every stall; the men and
women were singing snatches from his music. A cripple, on gigantic
crutches, seized hold of me and carried me off to the Municipio to
show me the musician’s bust, as excited as the rest of the crowd
to celebrate the artist of their town. We forgot the mountains, we
forgot Torcello, in the gaiety, brightness, good humour, and artistic
excitement of humanity. Nothing can well be more wretchedly poor than
the life of these hard-working people, and yet, to celebrate one dead
for a hundred years, every memory of their misery perished in pleasant
joy.
When we left Burano we rowed on another mile to visit the Island of St.
Francis in the Desert. Ever since the fourteenth century, with a few
intervals, it has been held by the Franciscans. A marble wall surrounds
the tiny island, a marble pavement leads up to the small convent with
its church and garden. Cypresses and tall poplars stand in the garden,
and one stone pine looks out from the corner of the wall over the waste
lagoon. It is a solitary and lovely place, like an island in the sea of
the world.
We found service going on; the little bell was ringing, and we knelt
among the monks. All the spirit of the silence, of the peace of
obedience, chastity, and poverty, of the love that ruled St. Francis,
fell upon us. The depth of the religious life was here. I looked up
as I knelt, and saw, rudely painted on the wall, the charming legend
of the place--how St. Francis, returning from the East, took boat at
Venice to reach the mainland, and as night fell was drifted to this
island, slept, and woke in the morning among the low bushes which
clothed its shore. And as the sun rose he began to chant the Matins.
But who, said he, will sing the responses? At which all the little
birds came flocking into the bushes, and when he paused sang the
responses for him.[2] And Francis, rejoicing, struck his staff into the
ground, and it became a tree where the birds had plenteous shelter.
Part of the trunk of that tree is still kept in the cloister--small
and poor, paved with brick, and a deep well in the centre. Vervain
and roses and balsams grew round its low pillars in pots of red
earthenware, and the scent of them was sweet and solitary. And we
forgot the noise and excitement of Burano, and remembered only the
peaceful sainthood of the world, and the secret of obedience, and the
love of God to poverty.
When we left the island the sun had set over the Euganean Hills, and
again, as in the morning, but of how different a note, a new impression
out of the life of Nature was made upon us. We rowed in silence through
the teaching of evening. And when night came and the only light was the
light of stars, the silence deepened into mystery. There is a sense
of the infinite on the lagoon at night, and speech seems to break its
spell. It is half awe, half pleasure; the excitement it brings is not
for words; it is translated within into the language of the personal
soul, the tongue which no one knows but one’s self alone.
This was our day. There is no other place I know of where so many
varied impressions may be awakened in the imagination. They are bound
up with the sea and their charm is from the sea.
This perfect evening slowly falls
Without a stain, without a cloud;
The sun has set--and all the bells
Of Venice in the skies are loud,
Clashing and chiming far and near
“Ave Maria,” while the moon
Large-globed and red, climbs through the mist
To loiter o’er the dark lagoon.
[Illustration]
CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The view from both these places, San Andrea and the Campo Marte, is
now blocked out by the great Fondamenta, built for the Orient Liners
and the Adriatic trade of Venice.
[2] There is another form of the legend, but I prefer this.
* * * * *
Transcriber’s note
Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.