This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1878 Excerpt: ...people." "Let us go." And we went. VIII. Here yon come with your old music--and here's all the good it hrings. What! they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the kings, Where St Mark's is--where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings. THE Palazzo Soranzo, on the Canal Grande, is one of the most ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1878 Excerpt: ...people." "Let us go." And we went. VIII. Here yon come with your old music--and here's all the good it hrings. What! they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the kings, Where St Mark's is--where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings. THE Palazzo Soranzo, on the Canal Grande, is one of the most sumptuous in Venice. We were led through the central sala, which was, more Vewzkino, filled with flowers and vines, among whose branches a few lamps were suspended, along the grand balustrade, to Catarina's own room. The other guests, two or three Italian gentlemen and a brace of Englishmen, Henry Ashton and Mr D., had arrived, and the party was at supper. Sedley mentioned my name: Catarina bowed and smiled. The pallor of the spectral sleep-walker still haunted my mind; I saw before me the rosy revel of a Bacchante. The contrast was effective and striking. Could this girlish form assume the superb matronhood of Rome? could the merry and mocking eye, the mischievous smile, pale their lustre at will under the pressure of an intolerable woe? The style of the room added to the contrast. It is a thousand pities that so little remains of the rich interiors of the old Venetian life. San Marco and the Ducal Palace may survive for another generation; but those domestic adornments, not less, nay, even more characteristic of the genius of its people, have been either destroyed or dispersed. At home the Venetian noble was the most luxurious of men, a luxury ministered to by a taste sumptuous in its simplicity, refined in its caprice. His was a civilisation which combined a Roman manliness with an oriental languor. Massive couches, gigantic cabinets, mirrors framed in columns of jasper and porphyry, benches at which the sons of Anak might have supp...
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