Seeing this, Ferrari exerted himself to be agreeable; he became a gay and entertaining companion once more, and after he had fixed the hour for our visit to the Villa Romani the next afternoon, our talk turned upon various matters connected with Naples and its inhabitants and their mode of life.

I hazarded a few remarks on the general immorality and loose principles that prevailed among the people, just to draw my companion out and sound his character more thoroughly--though I thought I knew his opinions well.
"Pooh, my dear conte," he exclaimed, with a light laugh, as he threw away the end of his cigar, and watched it as it burned dully like a little red lamp among the green grass where it had fallen, "what is immorality after all?
Merely a matter of opinion.

Take the hackneyed virtue of conjugal fidelity.

When followed out to the better end what is the good of it--where does it lead?
Why should a man be tied to one woman when he has love enough for twenty?
The pretty slender girl whom he chose as a partner in his impulsive youth may become a fat, coarse, red-faced female horror by the time he has attained to the full vigor of manhood--and yet, as long as she lives, the law insists that the full tide of passion shall flow always in one direction--always to the same dull, level, unprofitable shore! The law is absurd, but it exists; and the natural consequence is that we break it.

Society pretends to be horrified when we do--yes, I know; but it is all pretense.