Isotta Contarini [pp. 128-133]

84PPLETONS' JO URNZL.
marked by a culture, an erudition, and a high moral
tone, the most admirable in a writer of this class. He
contributes also to the XIXieme Siecle, but, so far as
I know, has no topic but the drama, and has done no
other work in literature or journalism. His name is
Francisque Sarcey, and he is an intimate friend of
such men as Taine, Renan, etc., and one of the very
few masculine associates of About. When Dumas
was elected to the Academy, Sarcey was loud in his
indignation that such a man as Taine should be
passed by for a writer of Dumas's rank.
If the French system of personal journalism
were to be introduced in this country, I think it
would not only work some useful reforms in our
press, but would be of incalculable value to the men
who really make our newspapers. They would acquire reputation by virtue of their work. They
would be less completely the vassals of the men
whom Fortune has placed at the helm of many leading newspapers. Reputation is a pen-worker's capital. Its possession means independence, honors, and
the just reward of conscientious endeavor.
ISO T TA CON T R ~INI.
BY JUNIUS HENRI BROWNE.
'C LIFFORD ASHLEY is the only son of a rich
lawyer who formerly lived and practised his
profession in Charleston, South Carolina. Clifford
was born in Columbia, the capital of the State, and
from his earliest years was accustomed to the best
that large fortune and cultured taste could furnish.
Although his father was dotingly fond of him, and
indulgent in everything, the boy was not spoiled.
He had no bad habits; being kept, it was thought,
out of a great deal of mischief by his love of books,
and by a strong aversion to whatever savored of
coarseness. He had few associations, and seemed to
care little for any society except that of his father
and mother, his private tutor, and an only and
younger sister. Consequently, he gained but very
slender knowledge of the world, though in place of
this he had a great fund of romance, which he fostered by reading all the extravagant works of fiction
he could lay hand upon.
Having reached his sixteenth birthday, he was
ready to enter college. His father was then (I86o)
very anxious to send him North, because he clearly
foresaw the civil strife in which the nation was destined to be plunged. He was so sure of it, indeed,
that he had already disposed of a large part of his
property, with a view to going abroad; being unwilling, in the expected crisis, either to side with or
against his native State. Therefore, in the spring
of the year preceding the war, Clifford came North
to enter Brown University, and the elder Ashley, a
few months later, went with his wife and daughter
to England, and took up his residence in London.
Clifford, having graduated soon after the close of
the war, joined his parents in England, where he
staid for several months, and then laid out a Continental tour. His father wished him to have a traveling-companion, older and more experienced than
himself; but to this the young man earnestly objected, declaring that if he could not look after his
own affairs when so near his majority he should never be able to.
The latter part of autumn of the same year saw
Clifford in Paris, which he soon quitted for Italy,
the country he most desired to see. Naturally, he
pushed on to Venice, the most romantic of cities,
where his mind and heart had long preceded him.
Shakespeare, Otway, Radcliffe, Lewis, Byron, Rogers, and poets and romancers of lesser note, he had
read and reread until his imagination teemed with
visions of the sea Cybele. He had thought he should
be happy if he could once stand on the Rialto or
the Bridge of Sighs, or glide in a gondola dreamily
down the Grand Canal, listening to the rowers singing the songs of Tasso. As he was whirling along
from Padua he found himself quoting stanza after
stanza in honor of the ancient home of the doges,
and in such a state of exaltation that he did not believe he could ever sleep in the marvelous capital.
He was exceedingly disappointed when he discovered that, after leaving the mainland, he was still
carried forward on the train. With his head out of
the car-window, he could distinguish the Campanile
and the dome of San Marco, and he inwardly chafed
that he could not be introduced to the glorious city
in a gondola. "The idea of going into Venice by
railway!" he exclaimed, with indignation. "That's
entirely prosaic. I had no notion of such an absurdity. It's an outrage on poetic travelers!"
To add to his dissatisfaction, the clouds which
had hung low all the afternoon condensed into rain.
And as he stepped into a gondola at the station, and
finally got off with his luggage to the H6tel Barbesi,
the ducal capital looked dull and gloomy enough.
He felt that he had been shamefully deceived when,
after securing apartments at the inn, and ordering
the gondolier to row him through the Grand Canal,
he was unable to detect, with all his eager gazing,
any of the splendid palaces he had read so much of.
He experienced the supreme balking of his expectations which is so common to most tourists who see
Venice for the first time under a cloudy sky. At
its very best, the city is never beautiful-perpetually as this adjective is applied to it —and at its
worst, which is in a rain-storm, it is extremely ugly,
and in no manner attractive. Venice is unique, pictorial, deeply interesting, altogether romantic, full
of history and associations to any one who looks at
it with an artistic eye or a cultured mind. But, regarded materially and externally alone, it is little
else than a decayed, wretched, forlorn old town, and
it repels many more persons than it allures, though
the repelled are morally afraid, on account of its
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