ew very well that
she did not love him, and of course concluded that the events of the
ball afforded the only foundation for such a report; but he was
convinced that she had been at home to the Prince on the morning when he
himself was refused admission; and too proud to discover the slightest
sentiment of jealousy, he satisfied his discontent by denigrating the
nation, for which he beheld with so much pain, Corinne's predilection.

Chapter iii.

_Oswald's Letter to Corinne_.

_January 24, 1795._

"You refuse to see me; you are offended at our conversation of the night
before last; and you have doubtless formed an intention to open your
doors in future only to your own countrymen, meaning probably by this
means, to expiate the fault you have committed in admitting to your
society a man of another nation. However, far from repenting my
sincerity with respect to the Italians, far from regretting the
observations which I made to you, whom, deluded by phantoms, I wished to
consider as an Englishwoman, I will venture to predict more strongly
still, that you will find neither happiness nor dignity should you make
choice of a husband from that society by which you are surrounded. I
know not the Italian worthy of you; there is not one by whose alliance
you could be honoured, let him be invested with whatever title he may.
Men in Italy are much less estimable than women; for they possess the
defects of the women, in addition to their own. Will you persuade me,
that these inhabitants of the South, who so pusillanimously shrink from
pain, and pursue the phantom of pleasure with so much avidity, can be
susceptible of love? Have you not seen (I have the fact from you) the
very last month, an Italian husband at the play, who but eight days
before had lost his wife, and a wife whom he pretended to love? They are
here not more eager to remove the dead from their sight than to efface
the remembrance of them from their mind. The funeral ceremonies are
attended to by the priests, as the rites of love are performed by the
attendant Cavaliers: ceremonial and custom supply the place of regret
and enthusiasm. Lastly, and it is this that principally destroys love,
the men of Italy are incapable of inspiring the women with any kind of
respect: the latter do not feel obliged by the submission of the former,
because their character is not dignified with firmness, nor their life
with