16 THE STONES OF VENICE

to be enslaved,-or else, as to us in England, is a severe tutor as well as protector, was ordered to minister to Venice like a gentle nurse, and to nourish her power without fretting her peace-to bear her ships with the strength of our English seas, but to surround her palaces with the quietness of the Arabian sands.

“There is a great deal more to be said to strengthen this, about climate, position under mountains, etc., but that is the main point impressed upon me daily by the degree of ease or difficulty with which my gondola beak runs against the posts of my door.”

It was characteristic of Ruskin that he was not satisfied with casual or second-hand information about the tides. “Preparatory to my chapter on the situation of Venice,” he writes in a later letter (November 23), “I have begun to study the tides carefully, as I found it was hopeless to arrive at any result by mere watching. I have got a tide book, and am putting down the hours of turning very carefully.”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]