I bore all this patiently, to give him no handle for accusing me of bigotry or intolerance, and in the hope that after the fever of erotic buffoonery and folly had subsided, he might have some lucid intervals, and listen to common sense. Meantime I gave him expressly to understand that I disapproved of his want of respect towards women, his free and profane expressions, and pitied those unhappy ones, who, he informed me, had been his victims.

He pretended to care little about my disapprobation, and repeated: “spite of your fine strictures upon immorality, I know well you are amused with the account of my adventures. All men are as fond of pleasure as I am, but they have not the frankness to talk of it without cloaking it from the eyes of the world; I will go on till you are quite enchanted, and confess yourself compelled in very conscience to applaud me.” So he went on from week to week, I bearing with him, partly out of curiosity and partly in the expectation he would fall upon some better topic; and I can fairly say that this species of tolerance, did me no little harm. I began to lose my respect for pure and noble truths, my thoughts became confused, and my mind disturbed. To converse with men of degraded minds is in itself degrading, at least if you possess not virtue very superior to mine. “This is a proper punishment,” said I, “for my presumption; this it is to assume the office of a missionary without its sacredness of character.”

One day I determined to write to him as follows:—“ I have hitherto attempted to turn your attention to other subjects, and you persevere in sending me accounts of yourself which no way please me. For the sake of variety, let us correspond a little respecting worthier matters; if not, give the hand of fellowship, and let us have done.”

The two ensuing days I received no answer, and I was glad of it. “Oh, blessed solitude;” often I exclaimed, “how far holier and better art thou than harsh and undignified association with the living. Away with the empty and impious vanities, the base actions, the low despicable conversations of such a world. I have studied it enough; let me turn to my communion with God; to the calm, dear recollections of my family and my true friends. I will read my Bible oftener than I have done, I will again write down my thoughts, will try to raise and improve them, and taste the pleasure of a sorrow at least innocent; a thousand fold to be preferred to vulgar and wicked imaginations.”

Whenever Tremerello now entered my room he was in the habit of saying, “I have got no answer yet.”

“It is all right,” was my reply.

About the third day from this, he said, with a serious look, “Signor N. N. is rather indisposed.”

“What is the matter with him?”

“He does not say, but he has taken to his bed, neither eats nor drinks, and is sadly out of humour.”

I was touched; he was suffering and had no one to console him.

“I will write him a few lines,” exclaimed I.

“I will take them this evening, then,” said Tremerello, and he went out.

I was a little perplexed on sitting down to my table: “Am I right in resuming this correspondence?” was I not, just now, praising solitude as a treasure newly found? what inconsistency is this! Ah! but he neither eats nor drinks, and I fear must be very ill. Is it, then, a moment to abandon him? My last letter was severe, and may perhaps have caused him pain. Perhaps, in spite of our different ways of thinking, he wished not to end our correspondence. Yes, he has thought my letter more caustic than I meant it to be, and taken it in the light of an absolute and contemptuous dismission.