consolation of your visits. I have told you fairly and simply that your
presence would unsettle all my enforced and infirm philosophy, and remind
me only of the past, which I seek to blot from remembrance. You have
complied on the one condition, that whenever I really want your aid I
will ask it; and, meanwhile, you have generously sought to obtain me
justice from the cabinets of ministers and in the courts of kings. I did
not refuse your heart this luxury; for I have a child--Ah! I have taught
that child already to revere your name, and in her prayers it is not
forgotten. But now that you are convinced that even your zeal is
unavailing, I ask you to discontinue attempts which may but bring the
spy upon my track, and involve me in new misfortunes. Believe me,
O brilliant Englishman, that I am satisfied and contented with my lot.
I am sure it would not be for my happiness to change it, 'Chi non ha
provato il male non conosce il bone.'

["One does not know when one is well off till one has known
misfortune."]

You ask me how I live,--I answer, /alla giornata/,--[To the day]--not for
the morrow, as I did once. I have accustomed myself to the calm
existence of a village. I take interest in its details. There is my
wife, good creature, sitting opposite to me, never asking what I write,
or to whom, but ready to throw aside her work and talk the moment the pen
is out of my hand. Talk--and what about? Heaven knows! But I would
rather hear that talk, though on the affairs of a hamlet, than babble
again with recreant nobles and blundering professors about commonwealths
and constitutions. When I want to see how little those last influence
the happiness of wise men, have I not Machiavelli and Thucydides? Then,
by and by, the parson will drop in, and we argue. He never knows when he
is beaten, so the argument is everlasting. On fine days I ramble out by