Besides the dislike he felt for the young artist, his small pride resented the thought that his sister, who was to marry a Contarini, should condescend to the defence of a servant.
Zorzi went his way calmly and spent the day in the laboratory.

He was in a frame of mind in which such speeches as Giovanni's could make but little impression upon him, sensitive though he naturally was.

Really great sorrows, or great joys or great emotions, make smaller ones almost impossible for the time.

Men of vast ambition, whose deeds are already moving the world and making history, are sometimes as easily annoyed by trifles as a nervous woman; but he who knows that what is dearest to him is slipping from his hold, or has just been taken, is half paralysed in his sense of outward things.

His own mind alone has power to give him a momentary relief.
Herein lies one of the strongest problems of human nature.