They are all that is left of something very beautiful, brought thither broken from the Church of the Holy Apostles; and so, too, one might have fancied that Marcello, standing at the window in the morning sunshine, belonged to a world that had long passed away--fit for a life that was, fit for a life to come hereafter, perhaps, but not fit for the life that is.

There are rare and beautiful beings in the world who belong to it so little that it seems cruelty and injustice to require of them what is demanded of us all.
They are born ages too late, or ages too soon; they should not have been born now.

Their very existence calls forth our tenderest sympathy, as we should pity a fawn facing its death among wolves.
But Marcello Consalvi had no idea that he could deserve pity, and life looked very bright to him, very easy, and very peaceful.

He could hardly have thought of anything at all likely to happen which could darken the future, or even give him reasonable cause for anxiety.

There was no imaginative sadness in his nature, no morbid dread of undefined evil, no melancholy to dye the days black; for melancholy is more often an affliction of the very strong in body or mind than of the weak, or of average men and women.