250 ST. MARK’S REST

swelling, and puffed pomp of infinite disorder;-the only action of it, being blown up, and away; the only calm of it, collapse;-the resolution of every miserable fold not to fall, if it can help it, into any natural line,-the running of every lump of it into the next, as dough sticks to dough-remaining, not less, evermore incapable of any harmony or following of each other’s lead or way;-and the total rejection of all notion of beauty or use in the stuff itself. It is stuff without thickness, without fineness, without warmth, without coolness, without lustre, without texture; not silk,-not linen,-not woollen;-something that wrings, and wrinkles, and gets between legs,-that is all. Worse drapery than this, you cannot see in mortal investiture.

54. Nor worse want of drapery, neither-for the legs are as ungraceful as the robes that discover them; and the breast of the central figure, whom all the angels admire, is packed under its corslet like a hamper of tomato apples.

To this type the Venetians have now brought their symbol of divine life in man. For this is also-St. Theodore! And the respectable building below, in the Bumble Style, is the last effort of his school of Venetian gentlemen to house themselves respectably. With Ionic capitals, bare-legged angels, and the Dragon, now square-headed and blunt-nosed, they thus contrive their last club-house, and prepare, for resuscitated Italy, in continued “Progresso,” a stately furniture store. Here you may buy cruciform stools, indeed! and patent oilcloths, and other supports of your Venetian worshipful dignity, to heart’s content. Here is your God’s Gift to the nineteenth century. “Deposito mobili nazionali ed esteri; quadri: libri antichi e moderni, ed oggetti diversi.”

Nevertheless, through all this decline in power and idea, there is yet, let us note finally, some wreck of Christian intention, some feeble colouring of Christian faith. A saint is still held to be an admirable person; he is practically still the patron of your fashionable club-house, where you

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