Witch Winnie in Venice and the Alchemist's Story

Excerpt from Witch Winnie in Venice and the Alchemist's Story: "Shreds and Patches is the title of the last chapter of the present volume; and the author is aware that the entire book - with its scraps of history cut out of whole cloth its numerous quotations its old characters familiar in former stories its personal impressions, theories, and moral reflections its endeavor to be instructive and yet amusing; and all this held together by the most transparent film of plot - is but a thing of shreds and patches."