[M.76L]                                                               [M.76]	St Mark's Place	76
* Compare Dante’s feeling and statement concerning Fortune            
De  ben chi son commessi alla Fortuna - and following conversation.   Chance. 		I never enter St Mark Place without some thought of this kind:
                                                                      		nor without some better understanding why the old Lombard
                                                                      		builder of San Zenone made the window let the light of its
                                                                      		west front through a wheel of Fortune:  For  them the fancies
                                                                      		of men have suffered the Sea Change of half a score
                                                                      		centuries - then their minds have met from the east and west
                                                                      		in that its narrow vortex - and the currents of a hundred
                                                                      		nations have wheeled & eddied in the narrow vortex - ever
                                                                      		with new glory rising from the foam - and the Stern Pisan
                                                                      		and the Dreamy Greek & and the wild restless Arab, and the languid
                                                                      		Ottomite and the strong Teuton, then the patience of early Christianity and
                                                                      		and the enthusiastic mediaeval superstition, and the
                                                                      		fire of ancient and all the rationalism of recent infidelity,
                                                                      		have all had their work, and all their time  - There the
                                                                      		marbles of a thousand mountains have been laboured, each
                                                                      		by those who dwelt at their feet, and the offerings of
                                                                      		a thousand isles had met in one cloud of incense - and out
                                                                      		of this masque and mosaic of Kingdoms and times, there have
                                                                      		arisen one wild Sea Harmony, the seetest that ever
                                                                      		human soul conceived.

[Version 0.05: May 2008]