mental
destruction with a certain degree of malignant expectation--and they
were estimable persons too. They were respectably connected--their
words carried weight--and for a time I was an object of their
maliciously pious fears. I was destined, according to their
calculations, to be a gambler, a spendthrift, a drunkard, an incurable
roue of the most abandoned character. Yet, strange to say, I became
none of these things. Though a Neapolitan, with all the fiery passions
and hot blood of my race, I had an innate scorn for the contemptible
vices and low desires of the unthinking vulgar. Gambling seemed to me a
delirious folly--drink, a destroyer of health and reason--and
licentious extravagance an outrage on the poor. I chose my own way of
life--a middle course between simplicity and luxury--a judicious
mingling of home-like peace with the gayety of sympathetic social
intercourse--an even tenor of intelligent existence which neither
exhausted the mind nor injured the body.

I dwelt in my father's villa--a miniature palace of white marble,
situated on a wooded height overlooking the Bay of Naples. My
pleasure-grounds were fringed with fragrant groves of orange and
myrtle, where hundreds of full-voiced nightingales warbled their
love-melodies to the golden moon. Sparkling fountains rose and fell in
huge stone basins carved with many a quaint design, and their cool
murmurous splash refreshed the burning silence of the hottest summer
air. In this retreat I lived at peace for some happy years, surrounded
by books and pictures, and visited frequently by friends--young men
whose tastes were more or less like my own, and who were capable of
equally appreciating the merits of an antique volume, or the flavor of
a rare vintage.

Of women I saw little or nothing. Truth to tell, I instinctively
avoided them. Parents with marriageable daughters invited me frequently
to their houses, but these invitations I generally refused. My best
books warned me against feminine society--and I believed and accepted
the warning. This tendency of mine exposed me to the ridicule of those
among my companions who were amorously inclined, but their gay jests at
what they termed my "weakness" never affected me. I trusted in
friendship rather than love, and I had a friend--one for whom at that
time I would gladly have laid down my life--one who inspired me with
the most profound attachment. He, Guido Ferrari, also joined
occasionally with others in the