408 THE STONES OF VENICE

respectable employment,-to set the stars in better order, perhaps (they seem grievously scattered as they are, and to be of all manner of shapes and sizes,-except the ideal shape, and the proper size): or to give us a corrected view of the ocean: that, at least, seems a very irregular and improvable thing: the very fishermen do not know, this day, how far it will reach, driven up before the west wind:-Perhaps Some One else does, but that is not our business. Let us go down and stand by the beach of it,-of the great irregular sea, and count whether the thunder of it is not out of time. One,-two:-here comes a well-formed wave at last, trembling a little at the top, but, on the whole, orderly. So, crash among the shingle, and up as far as this grey pebble; now stand by and watch! Another:-Ah, careless wave! why couldn’t you have kept your crest on? It is all gone away into spray, striking up against the cliffs there-I thought as much-missed the mark by a couple of feet! Another;-How now, impatient one! couldn’t you have waited till your friend’s reflux was done with, instead of rolling yourself up with it in that unseemly manner? You go for nothing. A fourth, and a goodly one at last. What think we of yonder slow rise, and crystalline hollow, without a flaw? Steady, good wave; not so fast, not so fast; where are you coming to?-By our architectural word, this is too bad; two yards over the mark, and ever so much of you in our face besides; and a wave which we had some hope of, behind there, broken all to pieces out at sea, and laying a great white tablecloth of foam all the way to the shore,¹ as if the marine gods were to dine off it! Alas, for these unhappy arrow shots of Nature; she will never hit her mark with those unruly waves of hers, nor get

¹ [In Val d’ Arno (1873), § 171, Ruskin gave an interesting criticism both of the style and of the contents of this section. He found in it, on looking back, “petulance and vulgarity of expression,” and recalled how his father wisely, but vainly, entreated him to re-word the clause and especially to take out of it the description of the seawave as “laying a great white tablecloth of foam all the way to the shore.” He reasserted emphatically the main contention of the passage, namely, the necessity of inequality and variety in ornament; but he explained that “the reserved variation” of the Greeks had at this time escaped him, and that he had failed to comprehend the symbolic power of such Greek ornament as he here illustrates. The woodcut is of the spiral ornament on the Treasury of Atreus at Mycenæ.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]