said, please to tell him
first, that is all. He will not believe you. But in six months he will
know it, I fancy, as well as I know it now. He might have doubled his
fortune, but he was and is totally ignorant of business. He thought it
enough to invest all he could lay hands on and that the returns would be
sure. He has invested forty millions and owns property which he believes
to be worth sixty, but which will not bring ten in six months, and those
remaining ten millions he owes on all manner of paper, on mortgages on
his original property, in a dozen ways which he has forgotten himself."

"I do not see how that is possible!" exclaimed Orsino.

"I am a plain man, Orsino, and I am your cousin. You may take it for
granted that I am right. Do not forget that I was brought up in a
hand-to-hand struggle for fortune such as you cannot dream of. When I
was your age I was a practical man of business, and I had taught myself,
and it was all on such a small scale that a mistake of a hundred francs
made the difference between profit and loss. I dislike details, but I
have been a man of detail all my life, by force of circumstances.
Successful business implies the comprehension of details. It is tedious
work, and if you mean to try it you must begin at the beginning. You
ought to do so. There is an enormous business before you, with
considerable capabilities in it. If I were in your place, I would take
what fell naturally to my lot."

"What is that?"

"Farming. They call it agriculture in parliament, because they do not
know what farming means. The men who think that Italy can live without
farmers are fools. We are not a manufacturing people any more than we
are a business people. The best dictator for us would be a practical
farmer, a ploughman like Cincinnatus. Nobody who has not tried to raise
wheat on an Italian mountain-side knows the great difficulties or the
great possibilities of our country. Do you know that bad as our farming
is, and absurd as is our system of land taxation, we are food exporters,
to a small extent? The beginning is there. Take my advice, be a farmer.
Manage one of the big estates you have amongst you for five or six
years. You will not do much good to the land in that time, but you will
learn what land really means. Then go into parliament and tell people
facts. That is an occupation and a career as well, which cannot be said
of speculation in building lots, large or small. If you have any ready
m