the stones of venice

since first the dominion of men was asserted over the ocean, three
thrones, of mark beyond all others, have been set upon its sands: the
thrones of Tyre, Venice, and England. of the first of these great powers
only the memory remains; of the second, the ruin; the third, which
inherits their greatness, if it forget their example, may be led through
prouder eminence to less pitied destruction.

the exaltation, the sin, and the punishment of Tyre have been recorded
for us, in perhaps the most touching words ever uttered by the prophets
of Israel against the cities of the Stranger. but we read them as a lovely
song; and close our ears to the sternness of their warning: for the very
depth of the fall of Tyre has blinded us to its reality, and we forget, as
we watch the bleaching of the rocks between the sunshine and the sea,
that they were once 'as in Eden, the garden of God'.

her successor, like her in perfection of beauty, though less in endurance
of dominion, is still left for our beholding in the final period of her
decline: a ghost upon the sands of the sea, so weak - so quiet, - so bereft
of all but her loveliness, that we might well doubt, as we watched her
faint reflection in the mirage of the lagoon, which was the City, and
which the Shadow.

i would endeavour to trace the lines of this image before it be for ever
lost, and to record, as far as i may, the warning which seems to me to be uttered by every one of the fast-gaining waves, that beat, like passing
bells, against the the stones of venice.

-john ruskin the stones of venice