The Colleoni is quite as much more beautiful in fact and seen full-size as I had hoped from all smaller reproductions.  A fine equestrian figure always strikes one as enthroned, and not merely riding; if I can’t get that, I consider a centaur the nobler creature with its human body set down into the socket of the brute, and all fire—­a candle burning at both ends:  which, in a way, is what the centaur means, I imagine?

Bellini goes on being wonderful, and for me beats Raphael’s Blenheim Madonna period on its own ground.  I hear now that the Raphael lady I raved over in Florence is no Raphael at all,—­which accounts for it being so beautiful and interesting—­to me, I hasten to add.  Raphael’s studied calmness, his soul of “invisible soap and imperceptible water,” may charm some; me it only chills or leaves unmoved.

Is this more about art than you care to hear?  I have nothing to say about myself, except that I am as happy as a cut-in-half thing can be.  Is it any use sending kind messages to your mother?  If so, my heart is full of them.  Bless you, dearest, and good-night.

LETTER XXXVIII.

Dearest:  St. Mark’s inside is entirely different from anything I had imagined.  I had expected a grove of pillars instead of these wonderful breadths of wall; and the marble overlay I had not understood at all till I saw it.  My admiration mounts every time I enter:  it has a different gloom from any I have ever been in, more joyous and satisfying, not in the least moody as our own Gothic seems sometimes to be; and saints instead of devils look at you solemn-eyed from every corner of shade.

A heavy rain turns the Piazza into a lake:  this morning Arthur had to carry me across.  Other foolish Englishwomen were shocked at such means, and paddled their own leaky canoes, or stood on the brink and looked miserable.  The effect of rain-pool reflections on the inside of St. Mark’s is noticeable, causing it to bloom unexpectedly into fresh subtleties and glories.  The gold takes so sympathetically to any least tint of color that is in the air, and counts up the altar candles even unto its furthest recesses and cupolas.

I think before I leave Venice I shall find about ten Tintorettos which I really like.  Best of all is that Bacchus and Ariadne in the Ducal Palace, of which you gave me the engraving.  His “Marriage of St. Catherine,” which is there also, has all Veronese’s charm of color and what I call his “breeding”; and in the ceiling of the Council Chamber is one splendid figure of a sea-youth striding a dolphin.

Last evening we climbed the San Giorgio campanile for a sunset view of Venice; it is a much better point of view than the St. Mark’s one, and we were lucky in our sunset.  Venice again looked like a beautified factory town, blue and blue with smoke and evening mists.  Down below in the church I met a delightful Capuchin priest who could talk French, and a poor, very young lay-brother who had the holy custody of the eyes heavily upon his conscience when I spoke to him.  I was so sorry for him!