doubting if I be gifted in that way at all, I think I may better devote
myself to discussion of such things in Venice as can be understood by
comparison with things elsewhere, and so rest happy in the thought that I
have thrown no additional darkness on any of the pictures half obscured
now by the religious dimness of the Venetian churches.

Doubt, analogous to that expressed, has already made me hesitate to spend
the reader's patience upon many well-known wonders of Venice; and, looking
back over the preceding chapters, I find that some of the principal
edifices of the city have scarcely got into my book even by name. It is
possible that the reader, after all, loses nothing by this; but I should
regret it, if it seemed ingratitude to that expression of the beautiful
which beguiled many dull hours for me, and kept me company in many
lonesome ones. For kindnesses of this sort, indeed, I am under obligations
to edifices in every part of the city; and there is hardly a bit of
sculptured stone in the Ducal Palace to which I do not owe some pleasant
thought or harmless fancy. Yet I am shy of endeavoring in my gratitude to
transmute the substance of the Ducal Palace into some substance that shall
be sensible to the eyes that look on this print; and I forgive myself the
reluctance the more readily when I remember how, just after reading Mr.
Ruskin's description of St. Mark's Church, I, who had seen it every day
for three years, began to have dreadful doubts of its existence.

To be sure, this was only for a moment, and I do not think all the
descriptive talent in the world could make me again doubt St. Mark's,
which I remember with no less love than veneration. This church indeed has
a beauty which touches and wins all hearts, while it appeals profoundly to
the religious sentiment. It is as if there were a sheltering friendliness
in its low-hovering domes and arches, which lures and caresses while it
awes; as if here, where the meekest soul feels welcome and protection, the