But there are two sorts of friends--friends who show their
friendship by wishing, and endeavouring to obtain for us, what we
wish for ourselves; and friends, whose friendship consists in
wishing for us things analogous to what they wish for themselves;--
who endeavour to procure for us, not what we wish, but what they
consider to be good for us.
Now the Baron Manutoli belonged to the latter of these two
categories. He was some years older than Ludovico; had been a
married man, and was now a widower with one little boy,--the future
Baron Manutoli; and considered himself as having been blessed with a
supreme and exceptional degree of good fortune, with regard to all
that appertained to that difficult and often disastrous chapter of
human destinies which concerns the relations of mankind with the
other sex. Happiness and advantages, ordinarily incompatible and
exclusive of each other, had in his case by a kind destiny been made
compatible. For the representative of an old noble family to remain
single, was bad in many points of view. But on the other hand--when
one's ancestral acres are not so extensive as they once were, and in
nowise more productive--when one likes a quiet life enlivened by a
moderate degree of bachelor's liberty,--when one sees the interiors
of divers of one's contemporaries and friends,--when one thinks of
mothers-in-law, and sisters-in-law, and a whole ramified family-in-
law!--the Baron Manutoli, though he had grieved over the loss of his
young wife when the loss was recent, was now, after some ten years
of widower's life, inclined to think that of the man, who had a
legitimately born son to inherit his name and estate, who had done
his duty towards society by taking a wife, and who was yet enabled
to enjoy all the ease and freedom from care of a bachelor's life, it
might be said, "Omne tulit punctum.
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