Roundabout to Boston (from Literary Friends and Acquaintance)

The narrator recounts years living in Venice and the persistent literary ambition that drove him to send verse to magazines with limited success, leading him to write prose sketches of Venetian life published as letters in a Boston paper. He describes small publication successes, friendships and encounters with American literary and diplomatic figures who offered advice and assistance, including one historian whose courtesy and dignity impressed him. Anecdotes illustrate the interplay of expatriate literary aspirations with the politics of the Civil War era and the influence of Boston's literary circles. The essays blend personal reminiscence, character sketches, and observations on publishing, diplomacy, and the challenges of making a literary career abroad.