38 THE STONES OF VENICE

of this marble paper, some is white and some coloured; but more is coloured than white, because the white is evidently meant for sculpture, and the coloured for the covering of large surfaces.¹

§ 42. Now, if we would take Nature at her word, and use this precious paper which she has taken so much care to provide for us (it is a long process, the making of that paper: the pulp of it needing the subtlest possible solution, and the pressing of it-for it is all hot-pressed-having to be done under the sea, or under something at least as heavy); if, I say, we use it as Nature would have us, consider what advantages would follow. The colours of marble are mingled for us just as if on a prepared palette. They are of all shades and hues (except bad ones), some being united and even, some broken, mixed, and interrupted, in order to supply, as far as possible, the want of the painter’s power of breaking and mingling the colour with the brush. But there is more in the colours than this delicacy of adaptation. There is history in them. By the manner in which they are arranged in every piece of marble, they record the means by which that marble has been produced, and the successive changes through which it has passed. And in all their veins and zones, and flame-like stainings, or broken and disconnected lines, they write various legends, never untrue, of the former political state of the mountain kingdom to which they belonged, of its infirmities and fortitudes, convulsions and consolidations, from the beginning of time.

Now, if we were never in the habit of seeing anything but real marbles, this language of theirs would soon begin to be understood; that is to say, even the least observant of us would recognise such and such stones as forming a peculiar class, and would begin to inquire where they came from, and, at last, take some feeble interest in the main question, Why they were only to be found in that or the other place,

¹ [Compare Aratra Pentelici, § 159, where “the providence of Nature” in the distribution of marbles is again discussed, and the characteristics of the schools of Athens and North Italy are referred to the several supplies of material.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]