ted it?

* * * * *

_From the Prince di San Zenone, Coombe-Bysset, Luton, Bedfordshire, to
the Duchessa dell'Aquila Fulva, Palazzo Fulva, Milano._

_Cara Teresina_,--

I ought to have written to you long since, but you know I am not fond of
writing. I really, also, have nothing to say. Happy the people who have
no history. I am like that people. I was made happy two weeks ago; I
have been happy ever since. It is slightly monotonous. How can you vary
happiness except by quarrelling a little? And then it would not be
happiness any longer. It seems to me that happiness is like an omelet,
best impromptu. Do not think that I am ungrateful, however, either to
fate or to the charming innocent who has become my companion. We have
not two ideas in common. She is lovely to look at, to caress, to adore;
but what to say to her I confess I have no notion. Love ought never have
to find dinner-table conversation. He ought to climb up by a ladder and
get over a balcony, and when his ecstasies are ended, he ought to go the
same way. I fancy she is cleverer than I am; but, as that would be a
discovery fatal to our comfort, I endeavor not to make it. She is
extraordinarily sweet-tempered; indeed, so much so that it makes me
angry; it gives one no excuse for being impatient. She is divine,
exquisite, nymph-like; but, alas, she is a prude! Never was any creature
on earth so exquisitely sensitive, so easily shocked. To live with her
is to walk upon egg-shells. Of course it is very nice in a wife,--very
"proper," as the English say; but it is not amusing. It amused me at
first, but now it seems to me a defect. She has brought me down to this
terribly damp and very green place, where it rains every day and night.
There is a library without novels; there is a cellar without absinthe;
there is a _cuisine_ without tomatoes, or garlic, or any oil at all;
there is an admirably-ordered establishment, so quiet that I fancy I am
in a penitentiary. There are some adorably fine horses, and there are
acres of glass houses used to grow fruits that we throw in Italy to the
pigs. By the way, there are also several of our field-flowers in the
conservatories. We eat pretty nearly all day; there is nothing else to
do. Outside, the scenery is oppressively green, the green of spinach;
there is no variety; there are no ilexes, and there are no olives. I
understand now why the English painters give such staring colors; unless
the