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Italian Hours by Henry James
page 59 of 414 (14%)
tables and chairs. Where in Venice is there not the amusement of
character and of detail? The tone in this part is very vivid, and
is largely that of the brown plebeian faces looking out of the
patchy miscellaneous houses--the faces of fat undressed women and
of other simple folk who are not aware that they enjoy, from
balconies once doubtless patrician, a view the knowing ones of
the earth come thousands of miles to envy them. The effect is
enhanced by the tattered clothes hung to dry in the windows, by
the sun-faded rags that flutter from the polished balustrades--
these are ivory-smooth with time; and the whole scene profits by
the general law that renders decadence and ruin in Venice more
brilliant than any prosperity. Decay is in this extraordinary
place golden in tint and misery couleur de rose. The
gondolas of the correct people are unmitigated sable, but the
poor market-boats from the islands are kaleidoscopic.

The Bridge of the Rialto is a name to conjure with, but, honestly
speaking, it is scarcely the gem of the composition. There are of
course two ways of taking it--from the water or from the upper
passage, where its small shops and booths abound in Venetian
character; but it mainly counts as a feature of the Canal when
seen from the gondola or even from the awful vaporetto.
The great curve of its single arch is much to be commended,
especially when, coming from the direction of the railway-
station, you see it frame with its sharp compass-line the perfect
picture, the reach of the Canal on the other side. But the backs
of the little shops make from the water a graceless collective
hump, and the inside view is the diverting one. The big arch of
the bridge--like the arches of all the bridges--is the
waterman's friend in wet weather. The gondolas, when it rains,
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