For men
learn to use their voices skilfully and to govern their tones as well as
their words; but, beyond not laughing too loud for ordinary decency of
behaviour, there are few people who care, or realize, how they laugh;
and those who do, and who, being aware that there is room for
improvement, endeavour to improve, very generally produce either a
semi-musical noise, which is false and affected, or a perfectly inane
cachinnation which has nothing human in it at all.
Bosio Macomer was a refined man, not only by education and outward
contact with the refinements he sought in others, but within himself and
by predisposition of nature. He read much, and found beauties in books
which his friends thought dull, but which appealed tenderly to his
innate love of tenderness. He had probably lost many illusions, but the
sweetest of them all was still fresh in him, for he loved nature
unaffectedly. In an unobtrusive way he was something of an artist, and
was fond of going out by himself, when in the country, to sketch and
dream all day. Veronica did not understand how with such tastes he could
bear the life in the Palazzo Macomer, for months at a time. He was free
to go and come as he pleased, and since he preferred the country, she
wondered why he did not live out of town altogether. His existence was
the more incomprehensible to her, as he rarely lost an opportunity of
finding fault with Naples as a city and with the Neapolitans as human
beings.
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