here is no policy
secure which is not bottomed on the good of the whole. Vulgar minds may
control the concerns of a community so long as they arc limited to
vulgar views; but woe to the people who confide on great emergencies in
any but the honest, the noble, the wise, and the philanthropic; for
there is no security for success when the meanly artful control the
occasional and providential events which regenerate a nation. More than
half the misery which has defeated as well as disgraced civilization,
proceeds from neglecting to use those great men that are always created
by great occasions.

Treating, as we are, of the vices of the Venetian system, our pen has
run truant with its subject, since the application of the moral must be
made on the familiar scale suited to the incidents of our story. It has
already been seen that Gelsomina was intrusted with certain important
keys of the prison. For this trust there had been sufficient motive with
the wily guardians of the jail, who had made their calculations on her
serving their particular orders, without ever suspecting that she was
capable of so far listening to the promptings of a generous temper, as
might induce her to use them in any manner prejudicial to their own
views. The service to which they were now to be applied proved that the
keepers, one of whom was her own father, had not fully known how to
estimate the powers of the innocent and simple.

Provided with the keys in question, Gelsomina took a lamp and passed
upwards from the mezzinino in which she dwelt, to the first floor of the
edifice, instead of descending to its court. Door was opened after door,
and many a gloomy corridor was passed by the gentle girl, with the
confidence of one who knew her motive to be good. She soon crossed the
Bridge of Sighs, fearless of interruption in that unfrequented gallery,
and entered the palace. Here she made her way to a door that opened on
the common and public vomitories of the structure. Moving with
sufficient care to make impunity from detection sure, she extinguished
the light and applied the key. At the next instant she was on the vast
and gloomy stairway. It required but a moment to descend it, and to
reach the covered gallery which surrounded the court. A halberdier was
within a few feet of her. He looked at the unknown female with interest;
but as it was not his business to question those who issued from the
building, nothing was said. Gelsomina walked on. A hal