"Thank you," he said, "for these true and noble words you have spoken; they have pleased me much. Amongst us there can be no difference of opinion as to the fact that custom is not the true standard of morality, and that the mission which poetry fulfils lies beyond the pale of human ordinances. I only protest against your assertion that the deficiency of great tragical poets in Italy is to be accounted for by the conventional fetters which restrain the character of the nation. As if capacity of mind, fancy, morality, and the sense of the beautiful must necessarily be equally developed; as if the one did not often outstrip the other. "If a great tragic genius, such as they once possessed in Alfieri were to be born again to the Italians, the spirit of the nation would not be slow to welcome him, and academic prejudices of style, could no more keep their ground, than enforced conformity to the law can oppose the rights and duties of a free born soul. "No," he continued, visibly moved, and the tears glistening in his eyes, "the hollow pathos of their tragedies is not the touchstone by which we can judge the soul of that noble nation. I cannot hear you say this without protesting against it, for if ever there existed a self-dependent character, in feelings, and actions; that character was my wife's, and she was an Italian." He paused, while we sat mute and breathless with surprise. Though we had always presumed ourselves to be well acquainted with him, and all related to him, we now heard for the first time that he had been married to a woman he so highly esteemed, and yet whose existence he had concealed as one conceals a wrong. He rose and paced the narrow and now dusky room, and we did not disturb him either by questions or inquiring looks. At last he stood still, and began in his deep and mellow voice: "I never told you this because the remembrance of it has always overpowered me, and the mere recalling of these events caused me a fever which laid me prostrate for a week. Still it always seemed to me as if I were wronging you, when I used jestingly to evade your railleries on my bachelorhood. Believe me, it was principally to redress this wrong, that I sought your society when I this time returned from my yearly visit to her grave. Let me therefore simply tell you all that my heart dictates to me; but first I must open this casement; the air here is so oppressive that I breathe with difficulty. So, now, go on with your cigars and your wine, while I walk up and down. "A quarter of a century has passed since those events, yet they are as present to my memory as if they had happened only yesterday; they will not let me rest."