BOOKS & AUTHORS.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2390, 20 February 1915, Page 5

BOOKS & AUTHORS.

' \ (By Liber.)

BOOKS OF THE DAY. A WANDERER IN VENICE. Mr. E. V. Lucas, in his "Wanderer in Venice" (London, Methu'en arid Co.), makes a delightful cicerone to one of the most delightful of European cities. In previous volumes in the same series he has dealt with London, Paris, Florence, and Holland, and his_ latest book is fully equal in charm to its predecessors. As before, ho is usefully informative, but his book is no mere rifaccimento of Baederker or Murray, for whatever ho sees and describes is dealtwith from an entirely personal point of view/ and even his many digressions are welcome, so quaintly out of the way is much of his discourse on the wonders, beauties, and curiosities of the ancient city of ,the Doges. / Mr. Lucas pays special 'attention to Italian classical art, upon which he writes with none of that pedantry which is to be found in so many books on the artistic history of Venice. He quotes, of oourse, freely cnoujih from Ruskin, John Addington S.ymorids, and the indispensable Vasari, but of all the many authors who have written on Venice be is more in sympathy with the American novelist, William Dean Howells, who was, in earlier life, Consul at Venice, and whose book "Venetian Life"—not half so well known to present-day readers as it deserves to be—convoys moire of the actual atmosphere and colour of Venice than any other book I know of —at least, previous to the appearance of the new Lucas volume.

Motor.Boat Versus Condola. Vcnice is changing in more ways than one. aiid Mr. Lucas is clearly noti in love with some of the innovations. The iotig, black-painted gondolas are still on the Grand Canal, and the innumerable waterways which the Venetians call Rio' this, that, or the other, and Biunts' names being generally favoured. Steamers there liavo been on the Grand Canal for many years, their appearance driving Ruskin almost speechless with wrath, but they , only-leave , the Grand Canal for the Lagoon, whereas the motor boats go everywhere, superseding the gondola on the Bmall canals. Mr. Lucas says there are grave reasons why the motor boats should be regarded with suspicion. *One reason is purely aesthetic, yet not the less weighty for that, since the prosperity of Venice in her days of decay resides in her roman-' tic beauty and associations. ■ The symbol of these is the gondola and the gondolier, indivisible, and the v only conditions under which they ■ can be preserved are quietude and leisure. _ The motor-boat, which is always in a hurry, and which, as it multiplies, will multiply hooters and whistles, "must necessarily ;de-. stroy the last vestige of Venetian calm. Also the small motor-boat makes a bigger wash than a crowded Grand Canal steamer, and this wash, says Mr. Lttcas. must weaken and undermine the foundations of the houses on each side of the canals through .which they pass.

The Venetian Girls. Much as Mr. Lucas has to say about the palaces of Venice, tho picture galleries, and churches; fie is to'me specially .interesting in his descriptions of tHe Venetian people. Of the slim and aracoful Venetian girls who are not the least interesting feature of the famous nightly promenade in St. Mark's Square, he says:— l ■ ..The girls,, in their black shawls . or scialli, remain in ilio memory as one of Venice's most distinguished possessions.- A handsome young '' eondolier in • white linen, with a coloured scarf,, bending to the oar, • 1 and Thrusting his boat forward, with . ■ muscular strokes, is'.a- delight . 'to: ; : watch; but he is without mystery.. These girls have grace and mystery, • too. They are so foreign, so slender, and straight, so sad. Their . faces are capable of'animation, but their prevailing expression is melancholy. Why is this? Is it because they know how secondary a place a woman holds in this city of well- ' nourished, self-satisfied men? Is it .that they know that a girl's life . is so brief; • one- day as supple and active as they are now, and-the next a crone? For it is one of the •tragedies that the .Venetian atmos- .. phere so rapidly ages women. . . . ■ Most of .these girls have dark or ■ black hair/ 1 The famous red hair of Venetian women is rarely seen out of pictures.

The Pigeons of St. Mark's. The ' pigeons which swarm in the famous Square, and which form a feature of so many pictures of Venice, although I have read somewhere that Whistler detested them—come in lor notice by Mr. Lucas. Why they are sacred is, he says, • something of a mystery. One story relates that the great Enrico Dandolo had carrier-pigeons with him in the East which conveyed t|io glad tidings of victories to Venice; another says that the same heroic old man was in possession of some valuable strategic information by means of a carrier pigeon, and on returning .' to Venice proclaimed it a bird to be reverenced. At one time there was a custom of: loosing a number of pigeons among the crowd on Palm Sunday. The birds, being weighted,- floundered downwards, and were caught and killed for the pot, but such as escaped were held to have earned their liberty for ever.

The Huns in Venice. •I am afraid Venice will not be rushed iby German tourists this year, and perhaps not for many years to come, but of lato years they have far outnumbered the British and American visitors and simply overrun the city, jnst as they used to overrun Ostend and the Dutch Scheringen. Here is a description of the German bathers on the Lido,. the stretch of sandy land which, as Mr. Lucas picturesquely puts it, "saves Venice from the assaults of her husband; the Adriatic, when in savage moods": ' ' In the height of the season the Lido becomes German territory. . . . .The long stretch of sana, with its myriad tents and boxes, belongs, permanently ' to the Italians, ana is, hot to be invaded, but . . ' the public parts are Teutonic. Hero from morning until evening paunchy men, with shaven heads, lie naked, or almost naked, in the sun, acquiring, first a shrivelling of the cuticle • which amounts to flaying, and then the tanning-which is so triumphantly borne back to the Fatherland. The water concerns them little; it is the sunburn on the sands that they value. . . . "Come on to these yejlow sands!" is the real cry of the Lido as heard in Berlin.

The New Campanile. Mr. Lucas misses, in the new Campanile, any aerial suggestion,, but it is a fine solid tower, and possesses at least one notable advantage over the original Campanile in that it is provided with a lift, which will take you to the. top for a franc, and thus provide the visitor with one of the ! loveliest views in Europe. Venice may be a decayed or decaying city but its rulers displayed a quite un-Vene(ian prompti? tude when they bad to face the erection of a new Campanile. The old tower fell on July 14, 1902, at nine in the morning. On the evening of tlie samo day the Town, Council mot, ucdor the chairmanship of Count Grimiani,. the Mayor, and without tho least hesitation, decided that a successor must be erected. In the too words

of the Count: "Dov'ers com-era" ("Where it was, and as it was.") Sympathy and contributions poured in from the outside world to strengthen the hands of the Venetians, and on-St. Mark's Day (April 25), 1903, the first stone was laid. On St. Mark's-Day. 1912, the new Campanile was declared complete in every part, and' blessed in tho presence of representatives of all Italy, while 2479 pigeons brought hither for the purpose carried the tidings to overy corner of the coun-

But I must quote no farther from Mr. Lucas's entertaining pages. All who have ever visited. Venice will rejoice in the book, and as reading about Venice iB the next best thing to seeing the ancient city, the volume deserves a wide circulation. As with other volumes of the "Wanderer" series, there are numerous illustrations in colour (in this case by Mr. Harry. Morley), and in monotone, these latter including reproductions of some of the splendid pictures to be found in the Venetian galleries and palaces. "A Bird's-eye View of Venice/' given as an end paper, is an excellent idea*. (Price, 65.)