The next mornin' Tommy wuz delighted with the idee of goin' in a boat
after some hair-pins for me and a comb for him--he had broke hisen. It
wuzn't fur we went, and I spoze we might have walked by goin' a little
furder; but variety is the spice of life, and it seemed to kinder
refresh us.
Floating in a gondola on the Grand Canal of Venice is a beautiful
experience when the soft light of the moon and stars is restin' on the
stately old marble palaces, the tall pillars of St. Theodore and the
Winged Lion, obelisk and spire. With other gondolas all about you, you
seem to be on a sea of glory, with anon music from afar coming sweetly
to your ears from some gondola or palace, and far up some narrow water
street opens with long shafts of light flashing from the gondolier's
lantern or open window. It is all a seen of enchantment.
Though if you should foller up some of them narrow water streets by
daylight, you would see and smell things that would roust you up from
your dream. You would see old boats unloadin' vegetables, taking on
garbage, water-boats pumpin' water into some house, wine shops, cook
shops; you would see dilapidated houses with poorly clad people
standin' in the doorways; ragged, unkempt children looking down on you
from broken windows, and about all the sights you see in all the
poorer streets of any city, though here you see it from a boat instead
of from a hack or trolley car. Green mould would be seen clinging to
the walls, and you would see things in the water that ortn't to be
throwed there.
Moonlight and memory rares up its glittering walls, but reality and
the searchin' life of the present tears 'em down. Where are the three
thousand warships, the three thousand merchant ships, that carried the
wealth and greatness of Venice back in the fifteenth century;
fifty-two thousand sailors, a thousand nobles and citizens and working
people according? Gone, gone! Floated way off out of that Grand Canal
and disappeared in the mists and shadows of the past, and you have to
go back there to see 'em.
The Rialto, which we had dremp about, looked beautiful from the water,
with its one single arch of ninety-one feet lifting up six arches on
each side. But come to walk acrost its broad space you find it is
divided into narrow streets, where you can buy anything from a crown
to a string of beads, from macaroni to a china teapot.
The great square of St. Mark wuz a pleasant place on an evening.
Little tables set out in the street, with gayly-dressed people
laughing and talking and taking light refreshments and listening to
the music of the band, and a gay crowd walking to and fro, and
picturesque venders showing their goods.
But to Tommy nothing wuz so pretty as the doves of St. Mark, who come
down to be fed at two o'clock, descending through the blue sky like a
shower of snow.
The Campanile or bell-tower towers up more than three hundred feet
above the pavement; way up on the tower two bronze statutes stand with
hammers and strikes off the hours. Why is it that the doves pay no
attention to any other hour they may strike but when the hour of two
sounds out, a window on the north side of the square opens and some
grain is thrown out to 'em (the Government throws it to 'em, dretful
good natered to think on't)? But how did them doves know two from
three? I d'no nor Josiah don't. I had provided Tommy with some food
for 'em and they flowed down and lighted on him and Dorothy, who also
fed 'em; it wuz a pretty sight. And Robert Strong thought so too, I
could read it in his eyes as he looked at Dorothy with the pretty
doves on her shoulder and white hands.
I got some sooveneers for the children at Venice, some little ivory
gondolas and photographs, etc., and Miss Meechim and Dorothy got
sights of things, Venetian jewelry, handsome as could be, and Arvilly
got a little present for Waitstill and a jet handkerchief pin for
herself. She mourns yet on the inside and outside, yes, indeed! and I
d'no but she always will.
And as you can git a relic of most everything at some of the shops I
told Josiah I would love to git hold of one of them old rings that the
Doges married the Adriatic with. And if you'll believe it that man
didn't like it; sez he real puggicky:
"I hope you hain't any idee of marryin' the Jonesville creek,
Samantha, because it won't look well in a M. E. sister and pardner."
Jealous of the creek! That's the last thing I ever thought that man
would be jealous on. The idee! I only wanted it out of curiosity.
We visited the Arsenal, another spot where the greatness of Venice in
the past hanted our memory, when she had twenty thousand workmen there
and now not two thousand. But we see queer lookin' things there--suits
of armor, crossbows, helmets. Josiah took quite a fancy to one wore by
Attila, king of the Huns, and wanted to put it on. Good land! his head
went right up into it just as it would into a big coal-scuttle. What a
mind Mr. Attila must have had if his brains wuz accordin' to his
head.
And we see infernal machines, thumb screws, spiked collars, and other
dretful implements of torture like black shadders throwed from the
past. A piece of the boat that the Doge went to his weddin' in when he
married the water wuz interestin'; weddin's always did interest
females and males too, no matter whether the bride wuz formed out of
dust or nothin' but clear water, and we also see a model of the boat
Columbus sailed in to discover us.
Robert Strong who wuz always interested in the best things, said that
the first newspaper ever published appeared in Venice three hundred
years ago, and the first bank was started there.
You can walk all over Venice if you want to take the time to go furder
round and cross the bridges and walk through narrer, crooked little
streets, some on 'em not more'n five or six feet wide, but the easiest
and quickest way is to take a boat, as well as the most agreeable.
Venice is built on seventy-two islands besides the Grand Canal which
takes the place of our avenues and streets. There is a charm about
Venice that there is not about any other city I ever see. You dream
about it before you see it and then you dream on and keep dreamin' as
long as you stay there, a sort of a wakin' dream, though you keep your
senses.
Memories of the past seem to hant you more, mebby it is because them
old memories can slip along easier over them glassy streets, easier
than they can over our hard rocky pavements. 'Tennyrate they meet you
on every side and stay right with you as long as you are there and
hant you. As you float down them liquid roads you seen face to face
sweet, wise Portia, "fair and fairer than that word;" and gallant
Bassanio who made such a wise choice, and Shylock, the old Jew. And if
you happen to git put out with your pardner, mebby he'll find fault
with you, and say demeanin' words about wimmen or sunthin' like that,
whilst sweet Portia's eyes are on you, if you feel like reprovin' him
sharp, then you'll remember: "The quality of mercy is not strained, it
droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven, it blesseth him that gives
and him that takes."
And so you forgive him. And then beautiful, sad Beatrice de Cenci will
meet you by moonlight in front of some of them old marble palaces and
her pa, about as mean a man as they make, and his sister, Lucretia de
Borgia, that wicked, wicked creeter. Why, it beats all what mean folks
Beatrice's relation wuz on her pa's side.
And you thought of any number of queer old Doges, rainin' and pizenin'
and actin', some on 'em, and marryin' the Adriatic; a poor match in my
opinion and one that you couldn't expect to turn out well, the bride
bein' slippery and inconstant and the bridegroom mean as pusley, cruel
and cunning, besides bein' jest devoted to the Council of Ten. Queer
works them Ten--made and cut a great swath that won't be forgot and
they needn't expect it. The page of history is sticky and bloody with
their doin's. But they move along in front of you, the Doges, the Ten
and the Three. And any number of conquerors and any number of Popes
and Kings down to Victor Emanuel.
And I d'no as I thought of anybody or anything there in Venice so much
as I did of John Ruskin, who give even the stuns of Venice a language
that will go on speakin' long after the stuns have mouldered back into
dust. And then the dust will keep his memory green, and folks will
ponder the "Ethics of the Dust" long after that dust has passed into
other changing forms and disappeared.
Great mind, great lovin' heart, who had but one thought, to make the
world more full of beauty, knowledge, sincerity and goodness. His
pure, bright intellect, his life white as the lilies, his living
thoughts and noble idees they rap at the human heart, as well as mind,
with their powerful sesame, and you have to open your heart's door and
take them in. Prophet of earth and heaven, the air, the clouds, the
birds and trees, the rocks and waters, translatin' the marvellous
words so our duller eyes and ears can see and hear.
As I walked along over them stones of Venice, and in the Galleries of
Modern Painters and ancient ones, my heart kep' sayin' onbeknown to
myself and them round me, "John Ruskin, noble soul, great teacher,
childlike, wise interpreter of the beauty and ministry of common
things, hail and farewell!" For he had gone--it wuz true that he who
had loved the flowers so and said to a friend who had sent him some:
"I am trying to find out if there are flowers that do not fade." He
had found out now, wreathes of heavenly immortelles are laid on his
tired forward, not tired now, and he has his chance to talk to Moses
and Plato, as he said he wanted to, and he is satisfied. Love and
Sympathy that he longed for comforts and consoles him, and Beauty and
Goodness wait on him.
Robert Strong felt just as I did about Ruskin, their idees about
helpin' the poor, and the brotherhood of man, and fatherhood of God,
wuz as congenial and blent together like sun and dew on a May morning.
Robert Strong said no other writer had done him the good Ruskin had.
And I guess Dorothy thought so too; she almost always thought jest as
Robert did.
In wanderin' round this uneek city Josiah said the most he thought on
wuz of tellin' Deacon Henzy and Uncle Sime Bentley about what he see
there. And shadowy idees seemed to fill his mind about tryin' to turn
the Jonesville creek through the streets and goin' from our house to
Thomas Jefferson's in a gondola.
Arvilly said she would gin anything to canvas some of them old Doges
for the "Twin Crimes". But I told her I guessed they didn't need to
learn anything about crime, and she gin up they didn't.
The first thing Miss Meechim wanted to see wuz the church of St. Mark,
so we all set off one day to see it. San Marco, as they call it, is
one of the most interestin' churches to visitors on the Continent. It
wuz begun way back in the tenth century, and it has been in process of
building ever since, and I don't know how long they lay out to keep at
it. They have spent thirty millions on it, so I hearn, and the news
come pretty straight to me, and I d'no but they'll spend as much agin
before they git through. But when you see all its magnificent
sculpture, columns, statutes, mosaic work, ornaments of every kind,
its grand arches, its five domes and spires and all the exquisite work
on it I d'no as I'd took the job for any less, and so I told Josiah.
But he kep' up his old idee he had voiced in many a similar spot, that
it wuz done by day's works and the workmen didn't hurry, and that it
would have been cheaper to had it done by the job. But how could they,
dribblin' along as they did ten hunderd years?
The four horses over the main entrance are very noted. They are said
to have been carved way, way back by Augustus to celebrate a triumph
over Antony and to have passed through the hands of Nero, Constantine
and Napoleon. Napoleon, a greedy creeter always, took 'em to Paris,
but had to bring 'em back.
For horses that are so old and have been driv round and showed off by
so many conquerors, they look pretty sound and hearty. But Josiah
didn't like their looks nigh so well as he duz the mair's, and sez he,
"That off one looks balky."
But I sez, "Distance lends enchantment; the mair can't begin with
'em."
The altar piece is said to have cost three million. It is of gold and
silver, and full of precious stuns. It was made in Constantinople a
thousand years ago, and has got inscriptions on it that I presoom read
well if anybody could read 'em. But I couldn't nor Josiah. But Robert
Strong read some on 'em to Dorothy, for I heard him. They are writ in
Latin and Greek.
When we got back to the tarven that night we found a hull pile of
letters from Jonesville, and amongst the rest I got a letter from
Elder Minkley, good old man of God, and Arvilly got one too; he sets
store by Arvilly now, he and his wife duz, and they pity her dretfully
for what she has went through, and make allowances for her hashness,
but never shall I forgit the way she talked to him right in my own
settin' room when she first come home from Cuba after her husband had
been murdered by the licensed Canteen.
She come to our house one day, and Elder Minkley, good old soul, come
in just after she did for a all-day's visit, poor creeter! I guess he
wuz sorry enough he come, some of the time; I guess he wished he wuz
back in his study perusin' the book of martyrs or anything else
deprestin', and would have thought 'em fur livelier than what he got
into.
The way on't wuz, Arvilly had met Miss Deacon Sypher at the gate and
she bein' dretful onfaculized with no more tact than a settin' hen,
had tackled Arvilly for a contribution to buy a flag to send to our
boys in Cuba, and talked enthusiastic about the war's holy mission.
And I spoze Sister Sypher wuz skairt almost into fits to hear Arvilly
go on, 'tennyrate she left her sudden and to once, and started home
'cross lots almost on the run, and Arvilly come into the house talkin'
and mutterin'.
"Drusilly Sypher knows a sight about it; our army gone to redress
wrongs and protect innocence! they better look to home and redress
wrongs here; half the citizens of this country in legal bondage, and
the hull country cowering under a crime and danger protected and
legalized; if I didn't want to make myself a mark for demon laughter
I'd quit such talk till I repented my sins in sackcloth and ashes."
"Well, well, Arvilly, set down, set down," sez I, for she wuz
rampagin' round the room back and forth, "set down, and here," sez I,
handin' her a bottle, "smell of the camfire, Arvilly, you look bad,"
and she did look frightful bad, pale and fiery, and burnin' mad at
sunthin' or somebody.
But she waived it off with scorn: "Camfire can't heal the smart, or
sweeten the air of the country; no, it needs fire from on high to burn
it out. And it will come," sez she, "it will come."
Why, she acted real wild and by the side of herself, and I pitied her
like a dog, and wuz at my wit's end what to say to her, and I wuz glad
enough to see Elder Minkley, good old saint, comin' up the steps and I
went to open the door with alacrity and my left hand, my right hand
wuz in the dough, I wuz makin' fried cakes, and I shook hands with him
the same, and I sez:
"How glad I am to see you this morning, Brother Minkley," little
thinkin' what wuz to come.
He took off his hat and overcoat and hung 'em up in the hall and
looked in the glass in the hall rack with his mild, benevolent eyes,
and brushed his thin, gray hair up on the bald spot over his benign
forward, and follered me into the settin' room, and I sez, "Here is
she that wuz sister Arvilly Lanfear."
And the good old soul advanced with a warm, meller smile on his face,
and sez:
"How do you do, Sister Arvilly."
But Arvilly's eyes snapped worse than ever; she never noticed his
outstretched hand, and she sez, "Don't you sister me."
"Why! why!" sez he, "what is the matter?" His welcomin' hand dropped
weakly by his side, and bein' dretful confused and by the side of
himself, he sez:
"I hain't seen you before sence you--you----"
"Deserted from the army," sez she, finishin' the sentence for him.
"Yes, I deserted, I am proud to say; I never had a right before under
this nation's laws and I took that right; I deserted and they couldn't
help themselves; mebby them men see how it would feel to grin and bear
for once, just as wimmen have to all the time."
Brother Minkley had by this time begun to find and recover himself,
and he sez with real good nature, "I meant to say, dear sister, that I
hadn't seen you before since you lost your husband."
"Since you murdered him," sez she.
"I--I murder a man?" He looked pale and trembled like a popple leaf.
"Yes, you and all other good men who stood by like Pilate, consentin'
to his death," Arvilly went on.
Elder Minkley looked too dazed and agitated to speak, and Arvilly
continued: "Do you pretend to say, Elder Minkley, that there is an
evil law on the face of the earth that the Church of Christ couldn't
overthrow if it chose to do so?"
He sez, "The power of the Church is great, Sister Arvilly, but
no-license laws don't stop drinking; liquor is sold somehow; folks
that want it will get it."
"What a argument!" sez Arvilly, liftin' her eyes to heaven. "But you
hain't answered my question," sez she, short as pie crust, mince pie
crust, "Is there an evil law existing to-day that the Church of Christ
could not overthrow if it tried to?"
"Well, no," he admitted, "I believe that the Church of Christ is
invincible."
"Do you vote, Elder Minkley?"
"Well, no, as it were, Sister Arvilly, I have felt for years that
politics was too vile for me to mix myself with."
Sez Arvilly, "Do you believe in following the Lord Jesus Christ?"
Sez Elder Minkley, his good natured face lighting up, "My Divine
Master; yes, I will follow him to the stake, to the death, if need
be."
"Did he turn away from sinners and the evils of the sinful world and
say they wuz too vile for him to mix with?"
"I--I--Sister Arvilly--I why--I don't know what you mean."
"Yes, you do know what I mean!" sez the intrepid but agonized
Arvilly.
"By your criminal indifference and neglect, you encourage the evil
power that rules and ruins."
Elder Minkley's face began to look red--red as blood--and sez he, "You
present the subject in a way I never thought on before, Sister
Arvilly. I will think of it; I will pray over it."
"Will you vote as you pray?" sez Arvilly anxiously.
"I will!" sez Elder Minkley, solemnly, "I will!"
Arvilly come forward and took holt of his hand. Her stern mean
softened; there wuz tears in her keen eyes; she looked different. Sez
she, "Next Sunday I shall set under your preachin', Elder; I hain't
felt like settin' under it before." And, sure enough, she did go to
meetin' the next Sunday and from that day they have been the best of
friends.
But to resoom forwards: I had a letter from Philury, she said she wuz
all well.
It wuz a letter that brought me some comfort and quite a lot of care;
it wuz some like a peppermint lozenge, considerably sweet with a sharp
tang to it, makin' me think of the sweetness and repose of home with
its accompaniment of anxiety and labor.
The children writ real good letters to their pa and me, full of
affection and thoughtfulness. Thomas J. told us considerable about the
Help Union and the good that Ernest White and his helpers wuz
accomplishing in Loontown and Jonesville. And Tirzah Ann wanted to
know if reveres had gone out and hoops comin' in; she had hearn so and
felt anxious. There had been a rumor in Jonesville to that effect, but
she couldn't place full dependence on it.
Thomas J.'s and Maggie's letters wuz full of gratefulness for Tommy's
restored health and what I'd done for him. No matter what else they
said that idee wuz runnin' along under the rest of their thoughts,
some like the accompaniment of a melodean to a sam tune in meetin'.
And Tommy himself had letters from his pa and ma full of love and good
advice, about half and half.
One of the most interestin' places in Venice is the Doges Palace, and
I spoze Josiah never gin up his idee about it until we stood right in
front of it. But when he see that marble front, full of noble columns,
elaborate carvin', arches, balustrades and base reliefs, he had to gin
up such a place as that wuz never rared up to a dog or to any number
on 'em, though he said when I convinced him of his mistake: "Snip wuz
too good to mingle with 'em, he was likelier than any Doge that ever
lived there, no matter whether you spelt 'em dog or doge."
And I sez soothin'ly: "Like as not and 'tennyrate how I would love to
hear Snip bark out a welcome to us once more."
"Yes," sez Josiah, "it will be the happiest hour of my life when I
behold Snip and the cat and the children and grandchildren and the
rest of the Jonesvillians once more."
Here in the marble pavement are two great bronze cisterns elegantly
sculptured, and you can look up the Grand Staircase with two statutes
at the top on either side, Neptune and Mars; and that wuz the place
where the old Doges wuz crowned.
On the staircase on each side are beautiful statutes and columns,
elaborate carving and richly colored marbles. The Hall of the Great
Council is one hundred and seventy-five feet long and most a hundred
in width, broad enough and high enough to entertain broader and nobler
views than wuz promulgated there. But it contains costly and beautiful
pictures; one by Tintoretto is eighty-four feet wide and most forty
feet high, the largest picture on canvas in the world so I've hearn,
and others by Paul Veronese and the other great masters.
All round the wall, like a border in a Jonesville parlor, are the
portraits of the Doges of Venice in their red robes and round-topped
caps. But where Marino Faliero should have hung wuz a black curtain.
Well, he wuz a mean creeter; it is a good thing he can be shut out
with a curtain. Josiah said he thought it would be a crackin' good
plan to have a black curtain hung before the pictures of some of our
public men, but Arvilly said, in a real dry tone, that "If we begun
that it would bring up the price of black cloth enormously."
She mourns yet quite a good deal in her best dresses, and looked
ahead, and didn't want the price of crape and bombazine riz.
Among the pictures of these old Doges wuz one who led the army in an
attack on Constantinople at the age of ninety-seven, when most old men
are bedrid with a soap-stun and water gruel. And Francesco Foscari,
who worked nobly for thirty-five years and wuz then abused shameful by
the Ten and turned out of office.
Them old Doges had their ups and downs; riz up to power, throwed down
agin. Mean as the Old Harry, some on 'em, and some workin' well for
the public. And some after servin' the public for years wuz banished,
some beheaded, some had their eyes put out, one died of vexation, one
who wuz deposed died when the bell rung in his successor. A few died
in battle, but only a few on 'em passed away in their beds after a
lingerin' and honorable sickness with their one wife and children
weepin' about 'em.
You can see the open place in the wall where the written complaints
wuz put aginst somebody or anybody, guilty or innocent, and wuz pretty
sure to be acted upon by the dretful Ten settin' there in their black
robes and black masks, fit color for their dark and cruel deeds.
We went down to see the dungeons, dark, cramped, filthy holes in the
solid wall: only a little light sifted in from the corridor through a
narrow slit. It seemed as if them places wuz so awful we couldn't bear
to look at 'em. But we went down into still deeper dungeons way below
the canal, dretful places where you can't hardly draw a breath. We see
dim traces of writings on the walls some wretched prisoner waitin' for
death had writ there. How did he feel when he writ it? I didn't want
to know, nor have Josiah know.
We didn't make a very long stay in Venice, but journeyed on to
Florence--Florence the beautiful. It lays in a quiet, sheltered valley
with the Apennine Mountains risin' about it as if to keep off danger.
The river Arno runs through it, spanned by handsome bridges. The old
wall that used to surround it with its eight gates, has been destroyed
some years ago.
As I say, it is a beautiful city, although it wuz more grand and
populous when it wuz the capital of Italy. Dorothy said it was well
named the City of Flowers, for there wuz flowers everywhere, the
markets full of 'em, flower girls at every turn, balconies and windows
overrunning with them, public gardens and private gardens sweet with
their brightness and perfume.