Monaldo
Thursday, April 3, 2008 at 06:08AM in best That was a few hundred shakes, more like, no?
But it is just impossible to find anything in our library. Goodness, you wouldn't believe it, not even if I showed you, how mixed up they all are, the dictionaries and grammars, the novels, stories, and correspondence, the histories, the biographies, the law books, the art books--there must be fifty books on the Yankees alone, and they sit next to books about Henry James and options trading. Don't tell him I said this, and I should whisper now since Melancholy is terribly sensitive when it comes to his books, but I'm not sure about an Arabic commentary on Aristotle when one can't read the language.
Oh dear. Yes, rather. But please don't say anything! It's not kind of us to tease.
I did find, after much searching, some delightful excerpts, translated, thank goodness, in the book by the Marchesa Origo. Here it is, advice from the Count to his son, the future poet:
Dress with dignity, be select in your company, greet everyone courteously, give a few coins to beggars, and you will be respected always and everywhere.