dam owes his
celebrity not in the least to his personal endowments, but solely to
the unique character of his position. The First Man could n't help
getting a certain reputation, would he, n'ould he. But from Adam to
Adrian--silence. Then sudden silvery music. And Adrian--mark the
predestination--Adrian is childless. He is the last link. With him
the chain, five thousand years long, stops. He is the sudden brilliant
flare-up of the fire before it goes out. Well, now, tell me--which end
of this stick would you prefer to be? The shining silver handle, or
the dull iron other end?"

They were conveyed to Isola Nobile in one of those long slender
Sampaolese _vipere_--boats that are a good deal like gondolas, except
that they have no felze, and carry a short mast at the bow, with a sail
that is only spread when the wind is directly aft. I suppose the
palace at Isola Nobile is one of the most beautiful in the world, with
its four mellow-toned marble facades rising sheer out of the water,
with its long colonnades, its graceful moresque windows, and the
variety, profusion, and lace-like delicacy of its carved and incised
details. Here again they had to write their names in the visitors'
book, and again a servant (this time a young and rather taciturn
person) led them through countless vast and splendid rooms, far more
splendid than those at the Palazzo Rosso, rooms rich with porphyry,
alabaster, mosaics, gilded flourishes and arabesques of stucco, and
containing many treasures of painting and sculpture, some of which, I
believe, even the sceptical Morellists allow to be actually the
handiwork of the artists to whom they are ascribed. But so far from
there being any question of their visiting the private apartments at
Isola Nobile, their guide, at one point in their progress, sprang
forward and hurriedly closed a door that had stood open, and through
which they had caught a glimpse of a pleasantly furnished library. By
and by they were passed on to a gardener, who showed them the gardens
on Isola Fratello and Isola Sorella, with their camphor-trees and
cedars, their oranges, oleanders, magnolias, laurels, their terraces,
whence thousands of lizards whisked away at the approach of Man, their
fountains, grottoes, temples, their peacocks, flamingoes, and tame
ring-doves, and always, always, with that wonderful outlook upon the
bay and its girdle of sun-bathed hills. The gardener plucked many
flowers for them, so that