Page:The Life of the Fields, Jefferies, 1884.djvu/263

Rh cause a sense of giddiness. It is so difficult to realize so much mass—so much bulk—moving so swiftly, and in so intertangled a manner; a mighty dance of thousands of tons—gliding, slipping, drifting onwards, yet without apparent effort. Thousands upon thousands of tons go by like shadows, silently, as if the ponderous hulls had no stability or weight; like a dream they float past, solid and yet without reality. It is a giddiness to watch them.

This happens, not on one day only, not one tide, but at every tide and every day the year through, year after year. The bright summer sun glows upon it; the red sun of the frosty hours of winter looks at it from under the deepening canopy of vapour; the blasts of the autumnal equinox howl over the vast city and whistle shrilly in the rigging; still at every tide the world of ships moves out into the river. Why does not a painter come here and place the real romance of these things upon canvas, as Venice has been placed? Never twice alike, the changing atmosphere is reflected in the hue of the varnished masts, now gleaming, now dull, now dark. Till it has been painted, and sung by poet, and described by writers, nothing is human. Venice has been made human by poet, painter, and dramatist, yet what was Venice to this—this the Fact of our own day? Two of the caravels of the Doge's fleet, two of Othello's strongest war-ships, could scarcely carry the mast of my Australian clipper. At a guess it is four feet through; it is of iron, tubular; there is room for a winding spiral staircase within it; as for its height, I will not risk a guess at it. Could Othello's war-ships