A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

where the lid joins the main body. Many critics consider

this leather too cold in tone; but I consider this

its highest merit, since it was evidently made so to

emphasize by contrast the impassioned fervor of the hasp.

The highlights in this part of the work are cleverly managed,

the MOTIF is admirably subordinated to the ground tints,

and the technique is very fine. The brass nail-heads

are in the purest style of the early Renaissance.

The strokes, here, are very firm and bold–every nail-head

is a portrait. The handle on the end of the Trunk has

evidently been retouched–I think, with a piece of chalk–

but one can still see the inspiration of the Old Master

in the tranquil, almost too tranquil, hang of it. The hair

of this Trunk is REAL hair–so to speak–white in patched,

brown in patches. The details are finely worked out;

the repose proper to hair in a recumbent and inactive

attitude is charmingly expressed. There is a feeling

about this part of the work which lifts it to the highest

altitudes of art; the sense of sordid realism vanishes

away–one recognizes that there is SOUL here.

View this Trunk as you will, it is a gem, it is a marvel,

it is a miracle. Some of the effects are very daring,

approaching even to the boldest flights of the rococo,

the sirocco, and the Byzantine schools–yet the master’s hand

never falters–it moves on, calm, majestic, confident–and,

with that art which conceals art, it finally casts over

the TOUT ENSEMBLE, by mysterious methods of its own,

a subtle something which refines, subdues, etherealizes the

arid components and endures them with the deep charm

and gracious witchery of poesy.

Among the art-treasures of Europe there are pictures

which approach the Hair Trunk–there are two which may

be said to equal it, possibly–but there is none that

surpasses it. So perfect is the Hair Trunk that it moves

even persons who ordinarily have no feeling for art.

When an Erie baggagemaster saw it two years ago, he could

hardly keep from checking it; and once when a customs

inspector was brought into its presence, he gazed upon

it in silent rapture for some moments, then slowly

and unconsciously placed one hand behind him with the

palm uppermost, and got out his chalk with the other.

These facts speak for themselves.

CHAPTER XLIX

[Hanged with a Golden Rope]

One lingers about the Cathedral a good deal, in Venice.

There is a strong fascination about it–partly because

it is so old, and partly because it is so ugly.

Too many of the world’s famous buildings fail of one

chief virtue–harmony; they are made up of a methodless

mixture of the ugly and the beautiful; this is bad;

it is confusing, it is unrestful. One has a sense

of uneasiness, of distress, without knowing why. But one

is calm before St. Mark’s, one is calm in the cellar;

for its details are masterfully ugly, no misplaced

and impertinent beauties are intruded anywhere; and the

consequent result is a grand harmonious whole, of soothing,

entrancing, tranquilizing, soul-satisfying ugliness.

One’s admiration of a perfect thing always grows,

never declines; and this is the surest evidence to him

that it IS perfect. St. Mark’s is perfect. To me it

soon grew to be so nobly, so augustly ugly, that it was

difficult to stay away from it, even for a little while.

Every time its squat domes disappeared from my view,

I had a despondent feeling; whenever they reappeared,

I felt an honest rapture–I have not known any happier hours

than those I daily spent in front of Florian’s, looking

across the Great Square at it. Propped on its long row

of low thick-legged columns, its back knobbed with domes,

it seemed like a vast warty bug taking a meditative walk.

St. Mark’s is not the oldest building in the world, of course,

but it seems the oldest, and looks the oldest–especially inside.

When the ancient mosaics in its walls become damaged,

they are repaired but not altered; the grotesque old

pattern is preserved. Antiquity has a charm of its own,

and to smarten it up would only damage it. One day I