I haven t any other."

He tried to put the coin in my hand, and spoke
again. I drew my hand away, and said :



A Tramp Abroad 237

"No, sir. I know all about you people. You
can t play any of your fraudful tricks on me. If
there is a discount on that coin, I am sorry, but I
am not going to make it good. I noticed that some
of the audience didn t pay you anything at all. You
let them go, without a word, but you come after mr.
because you think I m a stranger and will put up
with an extortion rather than have a scene. But
you are mistaken this time you ll take that Swis?
money or none."

The youth stood there with the coin in his fingers,
nonplussed and bewildered ; of course he had not
understood a word. An English-speaking Italian
spoke up, now, and said:

44 You are misunderstanding the boy. He does
not mean any harm. He did not suppose you gave
him so much money purposely, so he hurried back
to return you the coin lest you might get away
before you discovered your mistake. Take it, and
give him a penny that will make everything
smooth again."

I probably blushed, then, for there was occasion.
Through the interpreter I begged the boy s pardon,
but I nobly refused to take back the ten cents. I
said I was accustomed to squandering large sums in
that way it was the kind of person I was. Then
1 retired to make a note to the effect that in Italy
persons connected with the drama do not cheat.

The episode with the showman reminds me of a
dark chapter in my history. I once robbed an aged



238 A Tramp Abroad

and blind beggar-woman of four dollars in a
church. It happened in this way. When I was
out with the Innocents Abroad, the ship stopped in
the Russian port of Odessa and I went ashore, with
others, to view the town. I got separated from the
rest, and wandered about alone, until late in the
afternoon, when I entered a Greek church to see
what it was like. When I was ready to leave, I
observed two wrinkled old women standing stiffly
upright against the inner wall, near the door, with
their brown palms open to receive alms. I con
tributed to the nearer one, and passed out. I had
gone fifty yards, perhaps, when it occurred to me
that I must remain ashore all night, as I had heard
that the ship s business would carry her away at
four o clock and keep her away until morning. It
was a little after four now. I had come ashore with
only two pieces of money, both about the same size,
but differing largely in value one was a French
gold piece worth four dollars, the other a Turkish
coin worth two cents and a half. With a sudden
and horrified misgiving, I put my hand in my
pocket, now, and, sure enough, I fetched out that
Turkish penny !

Here was a situation. A hotel would require pay
in advance I must walk the street all night, and
perhaps be arrested as a suspicious character.
There was but one way out of the difficulty I flew
back to the church, and softly entered. There
stood the old woman yet, and in the palm of the



A Tiamp Abroad 239

nearest one still lay my gold piece. 1 was grateful.
I crept close, feeling unspeakably mean ; I got my
Turkish penny ready, and was extending a trembling
hand to make the nefarious exchange, when I heard
a cough behind me. I jumped back as if I had
been accused, and stook quaking while a worshiper
entered and passed up the aisle.

I was there a year trying to steal that money ;
that is, it seemed a year, though, of course, it must
have been much less. The worshipers went and
came ; there were hardly ever three in the church at
once, but there was always one or more. Every
time I tried to commit my crime somebody came in
or somebody started out, and I was prevented ; but
at last my opportunity came ; for one moment there
was nobody in the church but the two beggar-women
and me. I whipped the gold piece out of the poor
old pauper s palm and dropped my Turkish penny
in its place. Poor old thing, she murmured her
thanks they smote me to the heart. Then I sped
away in a guilty hurry, and even when I was a mile
from the church I was still glancing back, every
moment, to see if I was being pursued.

That experience has been of priceless value and
benefit to me; for I resolved then, that as long as I
lived I would never again rob a blind beggar-woman
in a church; and I have always kept my word.
The most permanent lessons in morals are those
which come, not of booky teaching, but of experi
ence.



CHAPTER XIX.

IN Milan we spent most of our time in the vast and
beautiful Arcade or Gallery, or whatever it is
called. Blocks of tall new buildings of the most
sumptuous sort, rich with decoration and graced with
statues, the streets between these blocks roofed over
with glass at a great height, the pavements all of
smooth arid variegated marble, arranged in tasteful
patterns -little tables all over these marble streets,
people sitting at them, eating, drinking, or smoking
crowds of other people strolling by such is the
Arcade. I should like to live in it all the time. The
windows of the sumptuous restaurants stand open,
and one breakfasts there and enjoys the passing
show.

We wandered all over tiie town, enjoying whatever
was going on in the streets. We took one omnibus
ride, and as I did not speak Italian and could not
ask the price, I held out some copper coins to the
conductor, and he took two. Then he went and got
his tariff card and showed me that he had taken only
the right sum. So I made a note Italian omnibus
conductors do not cheat.

(240)



A Tramp Abroad 241

Near the Cathedral I saw another instance of
probity. An old man was peddling dolls and toy
fans. Two small American children bought fans,
and one gave the old man a franc and three copper
coins, and both started away ; but they were called
back, and the franc and one of the coppers were
restored to them. Hence it is plain that in Italy,
parties connected with the drama and with the omni
bus and toy interests do not cheat.

The stocks of goods in the shop were not exten
sive, generally. In the vestibule of what seemed to
be a clothing store, we saw eight or ten wooden
dummies grouped together, clothed in woolen busi
ness suits and each marked with its price. One suit
was marked 45 francs nine dollars. Harris step
ped in and said he wanted a suit like that. Nothing
easier: the old merchant dragged in the dummy,
brushed him off with a broom, stripped him, and
shipped the clothes to the hotel. He said he did
not keep two suits of the same kind in stock, but
manufactured a second when it was needed to re-
clothe the dummy.

In another quarter we found six Italians engaged
in a violent quarrel. They danced fiercely about,
gesticulating with their heads, their arms, their legs,
their whole bodies; they would rush forward oc
casionally in a sudden access of passion and shake
their fists in each other s very faces. We lost half
an hour there, waiting to help cord up the dead, but
they finally embraced each other affectionately, and
16 **



242 A Tramp Abroad

the trouble was all over. The episode was interest
ing, but we could not have afforded all that time to
it if we had known nothing was going to come of it
but a reconciliation. Note made in Italy, people
who quarrel cheat the spectator.

We had another disappointment afterward. We
approached a deeply interested crowd, and in the
midst of it found a fellow wildly chattering and
gesticulating over a box on the ground which was
covered with a piece of old blanket. Every little
while he would bend down and take hold of the edge
of the blanket with the extreme tips of his fingers,
as if to show there was no deception chattering
away all the while, but always, just as I was ex
pecting to see a wonderful feat of legerdemain, he
would let go the blanket a.nd rise to explain further.
However, at last he uncovered the box and got out
a spoon with a liquid in it, and held it fair and
frankly around, for people to see that it was all
right and he was taking no advantage his chatter
became more excited than ever. I supposed he was
going to set fire to the liquid and swallow it, so I
was greatly wrought up and interested. I got a cent
ready in one hand and a florin in the other, intend
ing to give him the former if he survived and the
latter if he killed himself for his loss would be my
gain in a literary way, and I was willing to pay a fair
price for the item but this impostor ended his in
tensely moving performance by simply adding some
powder to the liquid and polishing the spoon !



A Tramp Abroad 243

Then he held it aloft, and he could not have shown
a wilder exultation if he had achieved an immortal
miracle. The crowd applauded in a gratified way,
and it seemed to me that history speaks the truth
when it says these children of the south are easily
entertained.

We spent an impressive hour in the noble cathe
dral, where long shafts of tinted light were cleaving
through the solemn dimness from the lofty windows
and falling on a pillar here, a picture there, and a
kneeling worshiper yonder. The organ was mutter
ing, censers were swinging, candles were glinting on
the distant altar and robed priests were filing silently
past them ; the scene was one to sweep all frivolous
thoughts away and steep the soul in a holy calnic
A trim young American lady paused a yard or two
from me, fixed her eyes on the mellow sparks fleck
ing the far-off altar, bent her head reverently a
moment, then straightened up, kicked her train into
the air with her heel, caught it deftly in her hand,
and marched briskly out.

We visited the picture galleries and the other regu
lation " sights " of Milan not because I wanted to
write about them again, but to see if I had learned
anything in twelve years. I afterwards visited the
great galleries of Rome and Florence for the same
purpose. I found I had learned one thing. When
I wrote about the Old Masters before, I said the
copies were better than the originals. That was a
mistake of large dimensions. The Old Masters were
r**



244 A Tramp Abroad

still unpleasing to me, but they were truly divine
contrasted with the copies. The copy is to the
original as the pallid, smart, inane new waxwork
group is to the vigorous, earnest, dignified group of
living men and women whom it professes to duplicate.
There is a mellow richness, a subdued color, in the
old pictures, which is to the eye what muffled and
mellowed sound is to the ear. That is the merit
which is most loudly praised in the old picture, and
is the one which the copy most conspicuously
lacks, and which the copyist must not hope to com
pass. It was generally conceded by the artists with
whom I talked, that that subdued splendor, that
mellow richness, is imparted to the picture by age.
Then why should we worship the Old Master for
it, who didn t impart it, instead of worshiping Old
Time, who did? Perhaps the picture was a clanging
bell, until Time muffled it and sweetened it.

In conversation with an artist in Venice, I asked :
" What is it that people see in the Old Masters? I
have been in the Doge s palace and I saw several
acres of very bad drawing, very bad perspective,
and very incorrect proportions. Paul Veronese s
dogs do not resemble dogs ; all the horses look like
bladders on legs ; one man had a right leg on the
left side of his body ; in the large picture where the
Emperor (Barbarossa?) is prostrate before the Pope,
there are three men in the foreground who are over
thirty feet high, if one may judge by the size of a
kneeling little boy in the center of the foreground ;



A Tramp Abroad 245

and according to the same scale, the Pope is 7 feet
high and the Doge is a shriveled dwarf of 4 feet."

The artist said :

"Yes, the Old Masters often drew badly; they
did not care much for truth and exactness in minor
details; but after all, in spite of bad drawing, bad
perspective, bad proportions, and a choice of sub
jects which no longer appeal to people as strongly
as they did three hundred years ago, there is a some
thing about their pictures which is divine a some
thing which is above and beyond the art of any
epoch since a something which would be the
despair of artists but that they never hope or expect
to attain it, and therefore do not worry about it."

That is what he said and he said what he be
lieved ; and not only believed, but felt.

Reasoning, especially reasoning without tech
nical knowledge, must be put aside, in cases of
this kind. It cannot assist the inquirer. It will lead
him, in the most logical progression, to what, in the
eyes of artists, would be a most illogical conclusion.
Thus: bad drawing, bad proportion, bad perspec
tive, indifference to truthful detail, color which
gets its merit from time, and not from the artist
these things constitute the Old Master; conclusion,
the Old Master was a bad painter, the Old Master
was not an Old Master at all, but an Old Apprentice.
Your friend the artist will grant your premises, but
deny your conclusion ; he will maintain that notwith
standing this formidable list of confessed defects,



246 A Tramp Abroad

there is still a something that is divine and unap
proachable about the Old Master, and that there is
no arguing the fact away by any system of reason
ing whatever.

I can believe that. There are women who have
an indefinable charm in their faces which makes them
beautiful to their intimates ; but a cold stranger who
tried to reason the matter out and find this beauty
would fail. He would say of one of these women:
This chin is too short, this nose is too long, this fore
head is too high, this hair is too red, this complexion
is too pallid, the perspective of the entire composi
tion is incorrect; conclusion, the woman is not
beautiful. But her nearest friend might say, and
say truly, " Your premises are right, your logic is
faultless, but your conclusion is wrong, nevertheless;
she is an Old Master she is beautiful, but only to
such as know her; it is a beauty which cannot be
formulated, but it is there, just the same."

I found more pleasure in contemplating the Old
Masters this time than I did when I was in Europe
in former years, but still it was a calm pleasure;
there was nothing overheated about it. When I was
in Venice before, I think I found no picture which
stirred me much, but this time there were two which
enticed me to the Doge s palace day after day, and
kept me there hours at a time. One of these was
Tintoretto s three-acre picture in the Great Council
Chamber. When I saw it twelve years ago I was
not strongly attracted to it the guide told me it



A Tramp Abroad



247



was an insurrection in heaven but this was an
error.

The movement of this great work is very fine.
There are ten thousand figures, and they are all
doing something. There is a wonderful "go " to the
whole composition. Some of the figures are diving
headlong downward, with clasped hands, others are
swimming through the cloud-shoals, some on their
faces, some on their backs great processions of
bishops, martyrs, and angels are pouring swiftly
centerwards from various
outlying directions every
where is enthusiastic joy,
there is rushing movement
everywhere. There are fif
teen or twenty figures scat
tered here and there, with
books, but they cannot keep
their attention on their read
ing they offer the books
to others, but no one wishes
to read, now. The Lion of
St. Mark is there with his
book; St. Mark is there
with his pen uplifted; he
and the Lion are looking

1.1 , t .1 THE LION OF ST. MARK

each other earnestly in the

face, disputing about the way to spell a word the
Lion looks up in rapt admiration while St. Mark
spells. This is wonderfully interpreted by the




248 A Tramp Abroad

artist. It is the master stroke of this incomparable
painting.

I visited the place daily, and never grew tired of
looking at that grand picture. As I have intimated,
the movement is almost unimaginably vigorous ; the
figures are singing, hosannahing, and many are blow
ing trumpets. So vividly is noise suggested, that
spectators who become absorbed in the picture
almost always fall to shouting comments in each
other s ears, making ear trumpets of their curved
hands, fearing they may not otherwise be heard.
One often sees a tourist, with the eloquent tears
pouring down his cheeks, funnel his hands at his
wife s ear, and hears him roar through them,
"OH, TO BE THERE AND AT REST!"

None but the supremely great in art can produce
effects like these with the silent brush.

Twelve years ago I could not have appreciated this
picture. One year ago I could not have appreciated
it. My study of Art in Heidelberg has been a noble
education to me. All that I am to-day in Art, I
owe to that.

The other great work which fascinated me was
Bassano s immortal Hair Trunk. This is in the
Chamber of the Council of Ten. It is in one of the
three forty-foot pictures which decorate the walls of
the room. The composition of this picture is be
yond praise. The Hair Trunk is not hurled at the
stranger s head, so to speak as the chief feature
of an immortal work so often is; no, it is carefully



A Tramp Abroad 249

guarded from prominence, it is subordinated, it is
restrained, it is most deftly and cleverly held in re
serve, it is most cautiously and ingeniously led up
to, by the master, and consequently when the spec
tator reaches it at last, he is taken unawares, he is
unprepared, and it bursts upon him with a stupefy
ing surprise.

One is lost in wonder at all the thought and care
which this elaborate planning must have cost. A
general glance at the picture could never suggest
that there was a hair trunk in it ; the Hair Trunk is
not mentioned in the title even, which is, * Pope
Alexander III and the Doge Ziani, the Conqueror of
the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa; " you see, the
title is actually utilized to help divert attention from
the Trunk; thus, as I say, nothing suggests the
presence of the Trunk, by any hint, yet everything
studiedly leads up to it, step by step. Let us ex
amine into this, and observe the exquisitely artful
artlessness of the plan.

At the extreme left end of the picture are a couple
of women, one of them with a child looking over her
shoulder at a wounded man sitting with bandaged
head on the ground. These people seem needless,
but no, they are there for a purpose; one cannot
look at them without seeing the gorgeous procession
of grandees, bishops, halberdiers, and banner-bear
ers which is passing along behind them ; one cannot
see the procession without feeling a curiosity to fol
low it and learn whither it is going; it leads him to



250 A Tramp Abroad

the Pope, in the center of the picture, who is talk
ing with the bonnetless Doge talking tranquilly,
too, although within 12 feet of them a man is beat
ing a drum, and not far from the drummer two per
sons are blowing horns, and many horsemen are
plunging and rioting about indeed, 22 feet of this
great work is all a deep and happy holiday serenity
and Sunday-school procession, and then we come
suddenly upon 1 1 y 2 feet of turmoil and racket and
insubordination. This latter state of things is not
an accident, it has its purpose. But for it, one would
linger upon the Pope and the Doge, thinking them
to be the motive and supreme feature of the picture ;
whereas one is drawn along, almost unconsciously,
to see what the trouble is about. Now at the very
end of this riot, within 4 feet of the end of the
picture, and full 36 feet from the beginning of it,
the Hair Trunk bursts with an electrifying sudden
ness upon the spectator, in all its matchless perfec
tion, and the great master s triumph is sweeping and
complete. From that moment no other thing in those
forty feet of canvas has any charm; one sees the
Hair Trunk, and the Hair Trunk only and to see
it is to worship it. Bassano even placed objects in
the immediate vicinity of the Supreme Feature whose
pretended purpose was to divert attention from it
yet a little longer and thus delay and augment the
surprise; for instance, to the right of it he has
placed a stooping man with a cap so red that it is
sure to hold the eye for a moment to the left of



A Tramp Abroad 251

it, some 6 feet away, he has placed a red-coated man
on an inflated horse, and that coat plucks your eye
to that locality the next moment then, between the
Trunk and the red horseman he has intruded a man,
naked to his waist, who is carrying a fancy flour-
sack on the middle of his back instead of on his
shoulder this admirable feat interests you, of
course keeps you at bay a little longer, like a
sock or a jacket thrown to the pursuing wolf but
at last, in spite of all distractions and detentions,
the eye of even the most dull and heedless spectator
is sure to fall upon the World s Masterpiece, and in
that moment he totters to his chair or leans upon
his guide for support.

Descriptions of such a work as this must necessarily
be imperfect, yet they are of value. The top of the
Trunk is arched ; the arch is a perfect half circle, in
the Roman style of architecture, for in the then rapid
decadence of Greek art, the rising influence of Rome
was already beginning to be felt in the art of the
Republic. The Trunk is bound or bordered with
leather all around 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 im
passioned fervor of the hasp. The high lights in
this part of the work are cleverly managed, the motij
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



252 A Tramp Abroad

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 inspira
tion 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 patches, 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 high
est altitudes of art ; the sense of sordid realism van
ishes 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 some
thing which refines, subdues, etherealizes the arid
components and endues them with the deep charm
and gracious witchery of poesy.

Among the art treasures of Europe there are pic
tures 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 or
dinarily have no feeling for art. When an Erie bag-



A Tramp Abroad 253

gagemaster 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.
I7 **



CHAPTER XX.

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 dis
tress, without knowing why. But one is calm before
St. Mark, one is calm within it, one would be calm
on top of it, 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 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