lture and of art. Fate might hurl me back
to America, or even into New Jersey, but I had "swum in a gondola."

I very soon made the acquaintance of two brothers from New York named
Seymour, somewhat older than myself, and men of reading and culture. With
them I "sight-saw" the city. I had read Venice up rather closely at
Princeton, and had formed a great desire to go on the Bridge of Sighs.
For some reason this was then very strictly forbidden. Our Consul, who
was an enterprising young man, told me that he had been for months trying
to effect it in vain. It at once became apparent to me as a piece of
manifest destiny that I must do it.

One day I had with me a clever fellow, a commissionaire or guide, and
consulted him. He said, "I think it may be done. You look like an
Austrian, and may be taken for an officer. Walk boldly into the chief's
office, and ask for the keys of the bridge; only show a little cheek. You
may get them. Give the chief's man two francs when you come out. At the
worst, he can only refuse to give them."

It was indeed a very cheeky undertaking, but I ventured on it with the
calmness of innocence. I went into the office, and said, "The keys to
the bridge, if you please!" as if I were in an official hurry on State
business. The official stared, and said--

"Do I understand that you formally demand the keys?"

"_Ja wohl_, certainly; at once, if you please!"

They were handed over to me, and I saw the bridge and gave the two
francs, and all was well. But it gave me no renown in Venice, for the
Consul and all my friends regarded it as a fabulous joke of mine,
inspired by poetic genius. But I sometimes think that the official who
yielded up the keys, and the man whom he sent with me, and perhaps the
commissionaire, all had a put-up job of it among them on those keys, and
several glasses all round out of those two francs. _Quien sabe_? _Vive
la bagatelle_!

We went on an excursion to Padua. What I remember is, that what
impressed me most was a placard here and there announcing that a work on
Oken had just appeared! This rather startled me. Whether it was for or
against the great German offshoot from Schelling, it proved that somebody
in Italy had actually studied him! _Eppure si muove_, I thought. It
cannot be true that--

"Padua! the lamp of learning
In thy halls no more is burning."

I have been there several times since. All that I now recall is that the
hotel was