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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.
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[Version 0.05: May 2008]