Asiatic trade, and her bazaars, heaped with Eastern riches, must have
assumed a deeply Oriental aspect. Her customs long retained many details
peculiar to the East. The people observed a custom for choosing and
dowering brides, which was of Asia. The national treatment of women was
akin to that of an Oriental State; Venetian women lived in a retirement
which recalled the life of the harem, only appearing on great occasions
to display their brocades and jewels. Girls were closely veiled when
they passed through the streets. The attachment of men to women had no
intellectual bias, scarcely any sentiment, but "went straight to the
mark: the enjoyment of physical beauty." The position of women in Venice
was a great contrast to that attained by the Florentine lady of the
Renaissance, who was highly educated, deeply versed in men and in
affairs, the fine flower of culture, and the queen of a brilliant
society. The love for colour and gorgeous pageantry was of Semitic
intensity and seemed insatiable, and the gratification of the senses
was a deliberate State policy. But passionate as was the spirit of
patriotism, enthusiastic the love and loyalty of the people, the civic
spirit was absent. The masses were contented to live under a despotic
rule and to be little despots in their own houses. In the twelfth
century the people saw power pass into the hands of the aristocracy, and
as long as the despotism was a benevolent one, the event aroused no
opposition. Like Orientals, the Venetians had wild outbursts, and like
them they quieted down and nothing came of them. As Mr. Hazlitt remarks,
"their occasional resistance to tyranny, though marked by deeds of
horrid and dark cruelty, left no deep or enduring traces behind it. It
established no principle. It taught no lesson." Venice was a Republic
only in name. The whole aspect of her government is Eastern. Its system
of espionage, its secret tribunals, its swift and silent blows,--these
are all Oriental traits, and the East entering into her whole life
from without found a natural home awaiting it. We should be mistaken,
however, in thinking that the Venetians in their great days were
enervated and lapped in the sensuality which we are apt to associate
with Eastern ideals. Sensuality did in the end drain the life out of
her. "It is the disease which attacks sensuousness, but it is not the
same thing." The Venetians were by nature men with a deep capacity for
feeling, and it is this deep