Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425. Various
a stone is pointed out in the pavement as the spot on which the emperor Barbarossa laid his head beneath the foot of Pope Alexander III. Then proceeding into the interior, you find the dusky atmosphere dimly blazing with a peculiar glitter from the walls and ceilings, the whole being one mass of gold mosaic, on which scripture subjects are inserted in a darker colouring. Think of a huge church, the interior facing of which is composed of pieces of gilt stone, each no bigger than the point of your finger would cover! But this is not all. The wide-extending pavement is seen to be composed in like manner of small pieces of marble and precious stones, set so as to form regular figures, all most exact, and still wonderfully entire, though it has endured the feet of daily thousands for several centuries. Unfortunately, from some infirmity in the vaulting below, this singular floor is thrown into undulations, in some places so great as to require care in walking over them. I spent hours in wandering about and examining the many curious things which are to be seen in this church, including those of its famous treasury. It is truly surprising that, after so many revolutions, so many of these valuables have been preserved. The fidelity of the priesthood to their charge is surely deserving of some admiration, considering how many opportunities there must have been of making away with precious articles, after which no inquiry would probably have ever been made.
A campanile, or bell-tower, has been erected in the square near the church, and is one of the most conspicuous objects in Venice; rising, as it does, above every other building. It seems slender; but I was surprised to find, on a rough measurement, that the sides are not less than fifty feet wide. A paved way, instead of a staircase, conducts to an open loggia near the top, whence you can have a complete view of the city. I remarked that the tops of many of the houses are of use in the same way as gardens and summer-houses are in other countries. People go there to smoke, or to take their coffee—the chimneys being a very slight obstruction to such enjoyments in a country where little fire is used. We here also had a good view of the celebrated orologio of Venice; a tower containing an ancient clock of peculiar elaborateness of construction. On the top stand two metal giants, armed with ponderous hammers, with which to strike the hours and quarters on a huge bell, placed between them. There is something terrible in these automata; and the feeling is not allayed when you hear that one of them once committed a murder, having with his hammer knocked an incautious workman over the battlements! The campanile was begun in 902; and I felt interested in tracing its resemblance, both in architecture and relative situation, to the square tower of St Andrews, which is supposed to be of nearly the same age.
My limits leave me no room to dilate upon our visit to the Accademia. Indeed, in the visit itself, we could do little more than pause here and there as a Titian or Tintoretto cast up in the multitude of pictures, or when we came before some specimen of the very early masters, of whose works there are many dating so far back as the end of the fourteenth century. There were some pictures representing transactions in Venice, of not much later date, which I regarded with interest, as preserving to us the appearance of men and things in that age; particularly one depicting some miracle, in which several grave ecclesiastics are seen swimming about in the Grand Canal, while ladies look on from windows and balconies, which I convinced myself still exist there. I must be equally brief with that place which no countryman of Shakspeare can avoid visiting, though the present Rialto is, after all, later than his time. It is of a curious structure as a bridge; there being three rows of building along it, containing shops, with two roadways for passengers. One crosses backwards and forwards, muttering: 'On the Rialto thou hast rated me,' &c.; goes distractedly into a shop, to purchase a breastpin, as a memorial of the place; and then plunges down the stairs, to resume his place in the gondola. We took a couple of hours to pay a visit to the Armenian monastery, on the island of San Lazzaro—the place to which Byron resorted in order to study the Armenian language. It is a curious old establishment, with some modern activity about it in the diffusion of literature; the monks having a printing-office in tolerable briskness, whence they issue books in various languages. We were delighted with the flush of beautiful flowering, from the oleander bushes in the central court, and the vine-hung alleys in the garden behind. I must not forget, in this hurried close of my adventure, the two moonlight sails we had through those mysterious watery streets, where, the associations of day and of the active world being shut out, we felt as if each light in the old palazzi illumined some scene of mediæval romance. That was like no other thing in our lives. On the third evening, we left this dream-city by a means which we had studiously ignored all the time of our visit—namely, a railway, which crosses from Venice to the mainland. It was something of a wakener to find ourselves at 'the station,' on the bank of one of the canals, and see a range of 'omnibus gondolas,' all duly labelled for their respective courses through the city, and ranked up in front like so many of the terrestrial machines which haunt the ordinary railway termini of this earth. However, we had the consolation of reserving this to the close of our visit, when, of course, we must have awaked out of our Venetian feelings at anyrate. The train brought us to Padua long before bedtime.
REALLY! INDEED! IMPOSSIBLE!
During a prolonged summer sojourn with kind friends resident in a quiet country town, we became quite interested in the tactics of the neighbours, and acquainted with their social condition.
'I think we have almost exhausted our visiting round,' said our hostess, Mrs Smith, one morning, as she replenished her card-case, 'with the exception of Really, Indeed, and Impossible, to whom we must introduce you. You look puzzled! but I mean the three Misses Bonderlay, who are usually distinguished by these interjectional names. We will forthwith send them an invitation to tea this very evening, and they shall be their own etymologists.'
At the appointed hour, three ladies were ushered into the drawing-room, bearing so startling a resemblance to each other in person, manner, and costume, that we at once decided they must be trins. Not so, however; there was a year or two's difference in age between them, which rendered the strong resemblance more remarkable. They were tall, well-formed, plump ladies, of middle or uncertain age; with round, unmeaning faces, flaxen locks, and pale-blue eyes. There was not a perceptible thread or pucker different in their three dresses, which must have fitted all indiscriminately; the flaxen curls were arranged in precisely the same waves round each mealy countenance; and the neat caps, with bright-green ribbons, doubtless had the same exact quantity of tulle and gauze in their fashioning. Each sister owned a delicate work-basket—trinal baskets also; and in each receptacle reposed a similar square of worsted-work, the same to the last stitch. We heard the visitors named as Miss Bonderlay, Miss Paulina Bonderlay, and Miss Constantia Bonderlay; but that was of no use, since they were not ticketed, and our blunders became embarrassing and ludicrous. We addressed Miss Bonderlay as Miss Paulina, when the senior lady drew up with dignified composure, and pointing to a sister, said: 'I am Miss Bonderlay: that lady is Miss Paulina Bonderlay.' And so on with the other two, who explained that they were juniors, as they waved a lily hand towards their eldest sister, indicative of her supremacy. But as the evening advanced, we learned to distinguish them by a peculiarity of expression, which had gained for these amiable maidens the somewhat singular cognomens of Really! Indeed! and Impossible! for their conversation, if conversation it could be called, consisted almost wholly of these interjections, pronounced in an unvarying, monotonous voice, while no shadow of emotion was perceptible on the cloudless expanse of their unwrinkled physiognomies.
When they were addressed in the usual conversational appeal which demands a reply of some kind, Miss Bonderlay, sipping her tea, or bending over her work, softly ejaculated: 'Really!' If you turned to Miss Paulina for some more tangible announcement of her opinion, she responded, in precisely the same tone: 'Indeed!' And when, as a last resource, you looked towards Miss Constantia, the word 'Impossible!' and that word alone, fell in honeyed accents from her ruby lips. By this means they were easily distinguished; and their most intimate friends often failed to recognise which was which when apart, and sometimes even when they were together, until the talismanic syllables gave to each her individuality. The peculiarity gave rise to a little good-humoured ridicule; but for our part, we thought it quite wonderful how well they played their part in conversation with so small a stock of words. There is much pliability of meaning, however, in an interjection; and in company, where there are always several persons who are anxious to be heard, it is a positive virtue. In Miss Constantia's intonation of her favourite 'impossible!' it seemed to me that there mingled a dash of