Italy from the Alps to Mount Etna . the huge railwaybridsfe reach across to whereTerra firma shows dimly in thedistance. It is the longest bridgein the world, for it measuresnearly twelve thousand feet inlength, and has more than twohundred arches. Xerxes ideaof bridging over the Hellesponthas been, as it were, realised bymodern Venice ; for we roll oniron rails over the waters rightinto the interior of the town. Nearly all that we havehitherto seen shows us but thetraces of past greatness; princelybuildings silently decaying, andprincely families sharing the fateof their palaces. We have been
Italy from the Alps to Mount Etna . the huge railwaybridsfe reach across to whereTerra firma shows dimly in thedistance. It is the longest bridgein the world, for it measuresnearly twelve thousand feet inlength, and has more than twohundred arches. Xerxes ideaof bridging over the Hellesponthas been, as it were, realised bymodern Venice ; for we roll oniron rails over the waters rightinto the interior of the town. Nearly all that we havehitherto seen shows us but thetraces of past greatness; princelybuildings silently decaying, andprincely families sharing the fateof their palaces. We have beenpassing through a worn-outworld, whose pulse has ceasedto beat for generations, where Life scarcely defends itself against Death. But a very different aspect of Venice revealsitself to us when on leaving the Piazza of St. Mark,—always the point of departure,—we plunge into the commercial parts of the town. We pass through an archway in theclock-tower, that forms so characteristic a feature of the north side of the Piazza, with. STREET IN VENICE. 72 ITAL Y. its great bronze figures that strike the hours, and get into the Merceria leading to thePonte di Rial to. Here we are in the midst of the Present, with its manifold require-ments and feverish haste. The watchword here is not to be, but to have ; not thedignity, but the keenness of the old Venetians predominates here. It is well known that
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Keywords: ., bookauthorcavagnasangiulianidig, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870
