scientifically applied to us, from behind, by the terrible life
of our day--and in the fact that, as the elements of slowness,
the felicities of deliberation, doubtless thus all hang together,
the last of calculable dangers is to enter a great Venetian room
with a rush.

Not the least happy note, therefore, of the picture I am trying
to frame is that there was absolutely no rushing; not only in the
sense of a scramble over marble floors, but, by reason of
something dissuasive and distributive in the very air of the
place, a suggestion, under the fine old ceilings and among types
of face and figure abounding in the unexpected, that here were
many things to consider. Perhaps the simplest rendering of a
scene into the depths of which there are good grounds of
discretion for not sinking would be just this emphasis on the
value of the unexpected for such occasions--with due
qualification, naturally, of its degree. Unexpectedness pure and
simple, it is needless to say, may easily endanger any social
gathering, and I hasten to add moreover that the figures and
faces I speak of were probably not in the least unexpected to
each other. The stage they occupied was a stage of variety--
Venice has ever been a garden of strange social flowers. It is
only as reflected in the consciousness of the visitor from afar--
brooding tourist even call him, or sharp-eyed bird on the branch-
-that I attempt to give you the little drama; beginning with the
felicity that most appealed to him, the visible, unmistakable
fact that he was the only representative of his class. The whole
of the rest of the business was but what he saw and felt and
fancied--what he was to remember and what he was to forget.
Through it all, I may say distinctly, he clung to his great