"It was impossible to have introduced into Dalmatia any such agricultural reform or innovation as would have ameliorated the cultivation of its fertile plains. The Dalmatian peasants were wedded to the unintelligent routine of their forefathers, and in their ideas or apprehension of things no landmark was ever removed. But, then, is the mere industry which clears the soil of any good if courage and intelligence do not second and direct material labor? Why do we so little care for the improvement of men? Machines and inventions are not a sufficient development: it is the heart and the mind which should be worked upon, changed, electrified into new activity. Will men never comprehend that civilization can never begin except at the soul, and that whatever is purely material must ever be overruled by what is intellectual?" This was written nearly a century and a half ago. The series of little pictures which Gozzi has left us of those days, when upon his return from Dalmatia he realized the abasement into which the family had finally fallen, are most vivid, and remind us of the honest realism of the Dutch painters. And the charm of Gozzi's writings lies precisely in that sense of genuineness which more than anything else inspires us with trust in a writer. You feel sure that whatever he relates is the thing he has himself observed or felt, just as it happened. All the puerile inconsistency of an age not fecundated by any belief, in which a strong religious sense is replaced by childish superstition and bold materialism, is admirably rendered in the episode of the death of the old senator Almore Cesare Tiepolo. He was a man of great benevolence, and he distinguished himself from his peers by a rare courtesy of manner toward his servants and the people of that class. It happened one day that as he was stepping out of his gondola his foot caught in the folds of his senatorial robe, and he fell down. In trying to hold him up his gondolier let go the oar, which struck Tiepolo's arm and broke it. He, however, showed no sign of pain and no irritation toward his man, but quietly walked home and sent for the surgeon. Forty days he was kept motionless in bed, and during all that time the same unalterable regard for the feelings of others made him gentle and uncomplaining and grateful for the care he received. But the old Venetian loved a good table; so every morning he had his gondolier come to his bedside and tell him what fish was in the market, how it looked, how much it cost; and, giving himself up to his culinary enthusiasm with the appreciative appetite of a connoisseur, he established the relative merit of the different fish and discussed their flavor, till one day, while he was engaged in his favorite morning occupation, the end of things came for him, and Almore Cesare Tiepolo turned his face toward the wall, like the prophet of old, and, surrendering himself to acts of fervid contrition with the aid of his confessor, he obtained a last