e dreariest circumstance about them was exactly
that this vacuity, this dreariness, this total want of all that can make
the life of a boy and of a young man pleasant to our fancy or attractive
to our sympathy, did not in the least depend upon any harshness or
stinginess of fate. Indeed, perhaps, no man had ever prepared for him
an easier existence; no man had ever less misfortune sent to him by
Providence, or less unkindness shown towards him by mankind, than this
constantly struggling, this pessimistic and misanthropic man. The only
son of Count Alfieri of Cortemiglia, of one of the richest and noblest
families of Asti in Piedmont, his early childhood was spent under the
care of his mother, a woman of almost saintly simplicity and kindness,
unworldly, charitable, devoted to her children, and to the poor of
the place; and of her third husband, also an Alfieri, who appears to
have been, in his affection and generosity towards his wife's children,
everything that a step-father is usually supposed not to be. Being
delicate in health, the boy was treated with every degree of consideration,
never worried with lessons, never exasperated with punishments, as long
as he remained at home. He was sent, under the care of an uncle, the
eminent architect, Benedetto Alfieri, who appears to have been the
ideally amiable uncle as Giacinto Alfieri had been the ideally amiable
step-father, to the academy or nobles' college at Turin, where again,
provided with plenty of money, and a most accommodating half-tutor,
half-valet, he enjoyed, or might have enjoyed, every advantage possible
to a young Piedmontese noble, either in the way of study or of idleness.
And, finally, when still in his teens, he had been supplied with ample
money, horses and fine clothes _ad libitum_, and almost unlimited
liberty to wander all over the world, from Naples to Holland, from
St. Petersburg to Cadiz, in search of experience or amusement. Nor
during those years of youthful wanderings, does he ever seem, except
upon one memorable occasion, to have been made to suffer from the
unconscientiousness, the harshness, the infidelity, the indifference of
the men and women whom he met, any more than in his boyhood he had
suffered from the severity of his masters, the brutality of his
tutor-servants, or the ill-nature of his fellow pupils. Fate and the
world were extremely kind to Vittorio Alfieri: giving him every
advantage and comfort, and teaching him no cruel lessons.