He talked now out of Marco Polo and he clad what that traveler had said in more gorgeous attire.

He meant nothing false; his exalted imagination saw it so.

He was painter of great pageants, heightening and remodeling, deepening and purifying colors, making humdrum and workaday over to his heart's desire.

The Venetian in his book, and other travelers in their books, had related wonders enough.
These grew with him, it might be said--and indeed in his lifetime was often said--into wonders without a foot upon earth.

But if one took as figures and symbols his gold roofs and platters, temples and gardens, every man a merchant in silks and spices, strange fruit-dropping trees and pearls in carcanets, the Grand Khan and Prester John--who could say that in the long, patient life of Time the Admiral was over-esteeming?
The pity of it was that most here could not live in great lengths of time.