, had been a magician's
wand to him. In the hall of the old Bracknell house at Salem there hung
a series of yellowing prints which Uncle Richard Saulsbee had brought
home from one of his long voyages: views of heathen mosques and palaces,
of the Grand Turk's Seraglio, of St. Peter's Church in Rome; and, in
a corner--the corner nearest the rack where the old flintlocks hung--a
busy merry populous scene, entitled: ST. MARK'S SQUARE IN VENICE. This
picture, from the first, had singularly taken little Tony's fancy. His
unformulated criticism on the others was that they lacked action.
True, in the view of St. Peter's an experienced-looking gentleman in
a full-bottomed wig was pointing out the fairly obvious monument to a
bashful companion, who had presumably not ventured to raise his eyes to
it; while, at the doors of the Seraglio, a group of turbaned infidels
observed with less hesitancy the approach of a veiled lady on a camel.
But in Venice so many things were happening at once--more, Tony was
sure, than had ever happened in Boston in a twelve-month or in Salem in
a long lifetime. For here, by their garb, were people of every nation
on earth, Chinamen, Turks, Spaniards, and many more, mixed with a
parti-coloured throng of gentry, lacqueys, chapmen, hucksters, and tall
personages in parsons' gowns who stalked through the crowd with an air
of mastery, a string of parasites at their heels. And all these people
seemed to be diverting themselves hugely, chaffering with the hucksters,
watching the antics of trained dogs and monkeys, distributing doles
to maimed beggars or having their pockets picked by slippery-looking
fellows in black--the whole with such an air of ease and good-humour
that one felt the cut-purses to be as much a part of the show as the
tumbling acrobats and animals.

As Tony advanced in years and experience this childish mumming lost
its magic; but not so the early imaginings it had excited. For the old
picture had been but the spring-board of fancy, the first step of a
cloud-ladder leading to a land of dreams. With these dreams the name
of Venice remained associated; and all that observation or report
subsequently brought him concerning the place seemed, on a sober
warranty of fact, to confirm its claim to stand midway between
reality and illusion. There was, for instance, a slender Venice glass,
gold-powdered as with lily-pollen or the dust of sunbeams, that,
standing in the corner cabinet betwixt two Lowes