hardly sufficient, they never appear to feel the need of any sort of serious preparation. In the same way, while they will vigorously adhere to facts, elsewhere, refraining manfully from entangling comment, here they seem to lose all sense of moral obligations in the direction of effectual research, and, naturally kindly, as many of them are, they become simply venomous. Naturally accurate and conscientious, they develop a spirit of vicious speculation, which amounts to a possession. I will not enlarge upon this topic, nor would I have embarked upon it at all were it not that the spirit of Ruskin—narrow, self-centred, self-contented, utterly uninformed, making a religion of ill-will, and ill-will into a religion—has as much sway in our day as it had in his, and its expression in his works is the reflection of the real feelings of many, many people to-day. Let none doubt that; and the fact that the calumniators are, some of them, men of blameless private life, or of unquestionable mental integrity in their own work, makes them all the more difficult to reach, for the pride which those private virtues engender is a horribly thick armour to penetrate. CHAPTER XXII WAR WITH GENOA Supernatural Recovery of the Apostle’s Body—Ruskin’s Account—Origin of the War—Early Life of Carlo Zeno—His Conquests—Governor of a Province in Greece—Return to Venice—Adventures at Constantinople—Escape of Zeno—Tenedos Becomes Venetian—Attack of the Genoese—Their Repulse—Carlo’s Popularity in Venice—Pisani’s Career—Carlo Routs the Genoese—Peace—Carlo’s Fame—His Visit to Jerusalem—Last Scuffle with the Genoese—Life in Venice. It has been told how, after the assassination of the Doge Saundo IV, the mob, in a state of ungovernable fury, set fire to the ducal palace, and how this fire, spreading, injured many noble buildings including St. Mark’s itself. Orseolo, it may be remembered, left the world within two years of his election, and the repairs were finished under Vital Falier. Then, to the dismay of the Doge and everybody else, it was discovered that the original resting-place of the Holy Apostle had been forgotten; and the pious Doge, having exhausted all the possibilities, resolved to leave the matter to the Almighty, who, by the intercession of the Evangelist, might enlighten them if He saw fit. So a general fast was proclaimed, for how long we are not told, and prayers were offered up in all the Churches and in every home; a procession was arranged for the 25th of June, when the people—or as many of them as could—assembled in the Church and all prayed together with their whole hearts. As they were doing so, to their wonder and delight the marbles of one of the pillars began to shake a little, which, as they watched, fell down completely, disclosing beneath it the bronze chest in which the body had formerly been laid.