176 THE STONES OF VENICE

§ 34. Let us not dream that it is owing to the accidents of tradition or education that those races possess the supremacy over colour which has always been felt, though but lately acknowledged among men. However their dominion might be broken, their virtue extinguished, or their religion defiled, they retained alike the instinct and the power; the instinct which made even their idolatry more glorious than that of others, bursting forth in fire-worship from pyramid, cave, and mountain, taking the stars for the rulers of its fortune, and the sun for the God of its life; the power which so dazzled and subdued the rough crusader into forgetfulness of sorrow and of shame, that Europe put on the splendour which she had learnt of the Saracen, as her sackcloth of mourning for what she suffered from his sword;-the power which she confesses to this day, in the utmost thoughtlessness of her pride, or her beauty, as it treads the costly carpet, or veils itself with the variegated Cachemire;¹ and in the emulation of the concourse of her workmen, who, but a few months back,² perceived, or at least admitted, for the first time, the pre-eminence which has been determined from the birth of mankind, and on whose charter Nature herself has set a mysterious seal, granting to the Western races, descended from that son of Noah whose name was Extension,³ the treasures of the sullen rock, and stubborn ore, and gnarled forest, which were to accomplish their destiny across all distance of earth and depth of sea, while she matured the jewel in the sand, and rounded the pearl in the shell, to adorn the diadem of him whose name was Splendour.

§ 35. And observe, farther, how in the Oriental mind a peculiar seriousness is associated with this attribute of the love of colour; a seriousness rising out of repose, and out of the depth and breadth of the imagination, as contrasted with the activity, and consequent capability of surprise, and

¹ [Formerly a common spelling for the Cashmere shawl; thus in Lytton’s Pelham (ch. 1.), “Perhaps you could get my old friend Madame de-to choose the Cachemire.”]

² [The reference is to the Eastern exhibits at the Great Exhibition of 1851.]

³ [Japheth: Genesis ix. 27.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]