poetic device that can heighten the charm of sound,--alliteration, as
in the famous description of the streets of Venice,

"Far as the eye could reach, still the soft moving of stainless
waters proudly pure; as not the flower, so neither the thorn nor
the thistle could grow in those glancing fields";[15]

the balanced close for some long period,

"to write her history on the white scrolls of the sea-surges and
to word it in their thunder, and to gather and give forth, in the
world-wide pulsation, the glory of the West and of the East, from
the burning heart of her Fortitude and splendour";[16]

and the tendency, almost a mannerism, to add to the music of his own
rhythm, the deep organ-notes of Biblical text and paraphrase. But if
we wish to see how aptly Ruskin's style responds to the tone of his
subject, we need but remark the rich liquid sentence descriptive of
Giorgione's home,

"brightness out of the north and balm from the south, and the stars
of evening and morning clear in the limitless light of arched
heaven and circling sea,"[17]

which he has set over against the harsh explosiveness of

"Near the south-west corner of Covent Garden, a square brick pit
or wall is formed by a close-set block of house to the back
windows of which it admits a few rays of light--"