A number of years ago it happened to the writer of this book to live in Venice. He accordingly read, as every good English-speaking Venetian does, Mr. Howells’s “Venetian Life.” And after the first heat of his admiration he ingenuously said to himself: “I know Constantinople quite as well as Mr. Howells knew Venice. Why shouldn’t I write a ‘Constantinople Life’?” He neglected to consider the fact that dozens of other people knew Venice even better than Mr. Howells, perhaps, but could never have written “Venetian Life.” Nevertheless, he took himself and his project seriously. He went back, in the course of time, to Constantinople, with no other intent than to produce his imitation of Mr. Howe…
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