statues: the ideal types of loveliness are realized in Italy; the saints
and heroes, the madonnas and nymphs, come true to the stranger at every
encounter with living faces. In Venice, particularly, the carriage of the
women, of whatever rank, is very free and noble, and the servant is
sometimes to be distinguished from the mistress only by her dress and by
her labor-coarsened hands; certainly not always by her dirty finger-nails
and foul teeth, for though the clean shirt is now generally in Italy, some
lesser virtues are still unknown: the nail-brush and tooth-brush are of
but infrequent use; the four-pronged fork is still imperfectly understood,
and as a nation the Italians may be said to eat with their knives.

The Venetian, then, seeing so little difference between himself and
others, whatever his rank may be, has, as I said, little temptation to
arrogance or servility. The effects of the old relationship of patron and
client are amusingly noticeable in the superior as well as the inferior; a
rich man's dependents are perfectly free with advice and comment, and it
sometimes happens that he likes to hear their lively talk, and at home
secretly consorts with his servants. The former social differences between
commoners and patricians (which, I think, judging from the natural temper
of the race, must have been greatly modified at all times by concession
and exception) may be said to have quite disappeared in point of fact; the
nobility is now almost as effete socially as it is politically. There is
still a number of historic families, which are in a certain degree
exclusive; but rich _parvenus_ have admission to their friendship,
and commoners in good circumstances are permitted their acquaintance; the
ladies of this patrician society visit ladies of less rank, and receive
them at their great parties, though not at more sacred assemblies, where
they see only each other.

The Venetians have a habit of saying their best families are in exile, but