echoes, images--by that element of the history of Venice which
represents all Europe as having at one time and another revelled
or rested, asked for pleasure or for patience there; which gives
you the place supremely as the refuge of endless strange secrets,
broken fortunes and wounded hearts.


II

There had been, on lines of further or different speculation, a
young Englishman to luncheon, and the young Englishman had proved
"sympathetic"; so that when it was a question afterwards of some
of the more hidden treasures, the browner depths of the old
churches, the case became one for mutual guidance and gratitude--
for a small afternoon tour and the wait of a pair of friends in
the warm little campi, at locked doors for which the
nearest urchin had scurried off to fetch the keeper of the key.
There are few brown depths to-day into which the light of the
hotels doesn't shine, and few hidden treasures about which pages
enough, doubtless, haven't already been printed: my business,
accordingly, let me hasten to say, is not now with the fond
renewal of any discovery--at least in the order of impressions
most usual. Your discovery may be, for that matter, renewed every
week; the only essential is the good luck--which a fair amount of
practice has taught you to count upon-of not finding, for the
particular occasion, other discoverers in the field. Then, in the
quiet corner, with the closed door--then in the presence of the
picture and of your companion's sensible emotion--not only the
original happy moment, but everything else, is renewed. Yet once
again it can all come back. The old custode, shuffling about in