Compare Dante’s feeling and statement concerning Fortune             106		76
De  ben chi son commessi alla Fortuna - and following con-            
versation.                                                            	               ST MARK’S PLACE
                                                                      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 Leonore let the light of its
                                                                      west front through a wheel of Fortune:  For  them the
                                                                      fancies of Laws suffered the Sea Change of half a score
                                                                      centuries - then their minds have met from the
                                                                      east and west - and the currents of a hundred
                                                                      nations have wjeeled and eddied in the narrow
                                                                      vortex - even with how [hew] glory rising from the foam - and
                                                                      the Ste[r]mnPisan and the Dreamy Greek - and the restless
                                                                      Arab, the languid Ottomite and the strong Teuton,
                                                                      then the patientce of early Christianity and the
                                                                      enthusiastic mediaeval superstition, and the fire of
                                                                      ancient and 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 cl[e]oud of incense - and out of this masque
                                                                      and mosaic of Kingdoms and times, there have arisen
                                                                      one wi[o]ld Sea Harmony, the seetest that ever human soul
                                                                      conceived.

[Version 0.05: May 2008]