feel it on my cheeks and be back north with that and warmer things, I
would go out in it in the face of protests, and had to go alone not
Arthur even being in the mood just then for a patriotic quest of the
uncomfortable. I had myself oared into the lagoons across a racing current
and a driving head-wind which made my gondolier bend like a distressed
poplar over his oar; patience on a monument smiling at backsheesh "all
comes to him who knows."
Of course, for comfort and pleasure, and everything but economy, we have
picked up a gondolier to pet: we making much of him, and he much out of
us. He takes Arthur to a place where he can bathe to use his own
expression "cleanly," that is to say, unconventionally; and this
appropriately enough is on the borders of a land called "the Garden of
Eden" (being named so after its owners). He "Charon," I call him is
large and of ruddy countenance, and talks English in blinkers that is
to say, gondola English out of which he could not find words to summon
me a cab even if it were not opposed to his interests. Still there are
no cabs to be called in Venice, and he is teaching us that the shortest
way is always by water. If Arthur is not punctually in his gondola by 7
A.M., I hear a call for the "Signore Inglese" go up to his window; and
it is hungry Charon waiting to ferry him.
Yesterday your friend Mr. C called and took me over to Murano in a
beautiful pair-oared boat that simply flew. There I saw a wonderful apse
filled with mosaic of dull gold, wherein is set a blue-black figure of
the Madonna, ten heads high and ten centuries old, which almost made me
become a Mariolatrist on the spot. She stands leaning up the bend with
two pale hands lifted in ghostly blessing. Underfoot the floor is all
mosaic, mountainous with age and earthquakes; the architecture classic
in the grip of Byzantine Christianity, which is like the spirit of God
moving on the face of the waters, or Ezekiel prophesying to the dry
bones.
The Colleoni is quite as much more beautiful in fact and seen full-size
as I had hoped from all smaller reproductions. A fine equestrian figure
always strikes one as enthroned, and not merely riding; if I can't get
that, I consider a centaur the nobler creature with its human body set
down into the socket of the brute, and all fire a candle burning at
both ends: which, in a way, is what the centaur means, I imagine?
Bellini goes on being wonderful, and for me beats Raphael's Blenheim
Madonna period on its own ground. I hear now that the Raphael lady I
raved over in Florence is no Raphael at all, which accounts for it
being so beautiful and interesting to me , I hasten to add. Raphael's
studied calmness, his soul of "invisible soap and imperceptible water,"
may charm some; me it only chills or leaves unmoved.
Is this more about art than you care to hear? I have nothing to say
about myself, except that I am as happy as a cut-in-half thing can be.
Is it any use sending kind messages to your mother? If so, my heart is
full of them. Bless you, dearest, and good-night.
continued below....
