And you ought to know it, because evil tongues are more plentiful than good voices in Rome, as elsewhere, and people are saying many spiteful things about him--though they clap loudly enough at the theatre when he sings.
He is like a son to me, and perhaps I am reconciled, after all, to his not having become a philosopher.

He would never have been so famous as he is now, and _he_ really knows so much more than Maestro De Pretis--in other ways than music--that he is very presentable indeed.
What is blood, nowadays?
What difference does it make to society whether Nino Cardegna, the tenor was the son of a vine-dresser?
Or what does the University care for the fact that I, Cornelio Grandi, am the last of a race as old as the Colonnas, and quite as honourable?
What does Mariuccia care?
What does anybody care?
Corpo di Bacco! if we begin talking of race we shall waste as much time as would make us all great celebrities! I am not a celebrity--I never shall be now, for a man must begin at that trade young.

It is a profession--being celebrated--and it has its signal advantages.

Nino will tell you so, and he has tried it.

But one must begin young, very young! I cannot begin again.
And then, as you all know, I never began at all.