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 famil iar 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. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.