A Virtuoso's Collection (From "Mosses from an Old Manse")

Stepping off a sun‑lit street into a modest, unassuming museum, the narrator is drawn by a simple sign promising “A Virtuoso’s Collection.” After paying a modest fee to a weather‑worn doorkeeper, he is greeted by a bronze figure of the wing‑footed Youth, an emblem of Opportunity, and a cultured guide whose origins seem as eclectic as the curiosities he will reveal. The guide, a self‑described virtuoso, offers a personal tour through a hall that feels part cabinet of wonders, part gallery of myth.

Among the first exhibits are taxidermied beasts linked to familiar stories—a fierce wolf said to have devoured Little Red Riding Hood, a nurturing she‑wolf that nursed the founders of Rome, and a pure‑white lamb echoing Spenser’s allegory. The tour then turns to a strange hybrid creature, a horse with an ox’s head, claimed to be the legendary Bucephalus, standing beside the skeletal remains of its famed companion, Rosinante. These oddities hint at a larger, enigmatic collection that invites listeners to wander through history, legend, and imagination.