Chapter XXXVII: Letter XXXVII

Beloved: The weather is as gray as England to-day, and much rainier. To 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.