ll the dreary stuff,
including statistics, letters to Hobbs and Nobbs, with hot arguments as
to who fished the murex up, and long, scathing tirades against the old
legal shark who did him out of a hundred pounds. Surely, to be swindled
by a lawyer is not so unusual a thing that it is worth recording!

But Ruskin wrote about it, had it put in print, read the proof, and
printed the stuff, so no one, no matter how charitably disposed, can
arise and zealously declare that this only is genuine, and that spurious.
It's all genuine--rubbish, bosh and all.

Titian painted some dreary, commonplace pictures, and he also painted
others that must ever be reckoned as among the examples of sublime art
that have made the world stronger in its day and generation and proud of
what has been.

Titian was essentially a pagan. When he painted Christian subjects he
introduced a goodly flavor of the old Greek love of life. Indeed, there
is a strong doubt whether the real essence of Christianity was ever known
at Venice, except in rare individual cases.

It was the spirit of the sea-kings, and not the gentle, loving Christ,
that inspired her artists and men of learning.

The sensuous glamour of the Orient steeped the walls of San Marco in
their rainbow tints, and gave that careless, happy habit to all the
Venetian folk. In Titian's time, as today, gay gallants knelt in the
churches, and dark, dreamy eyes peeked out from behind mantillas, and the
fan spoke a language which all lovers knew. Outside was the strong smell
of the sea, and never could a sash be flung open to the azure but there
would come floating in on the breeze the gentle tinkle of a guitar.

But Titian, too, as well as Giorgione, infused into his work at times the
very breath of life.

At the Belle d' Arte at Venice is that grand picture, "The Assumption,"
which for more than two hundred years was in the Church of Santa Maria
de' Frari. When Napoleon appointed a commission to select the paintings
in Venice that were considered best worth preserving and protecting, and
take them to the Belle d' Arte, this picture was included in the list. It
was then removed from its place, where it had so long hung, above the
grave of the man who executed it.

I have several large photographs of this picture, showing different
portions of it. One of these pictures reveals simply the form of the
Virgin. She rises from the earth, caught up in the clouds, the drapery
streaming in soft folds