Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Music and Manners, Vol. 2 of 2: Personal Reminiscences and Sketches of Character
About as engrossing and intense as may be. Comparing Vienna with other Continental capitals justly renowned for their inhospitality, I am forced to admit that she is as churlish as the worst of them, and a good deal less honest in her churlishness. Let us take Florence, for instance. It is beyond dispute that you may reside in that poco-camm'e city for a dozen years, move in the best society, keep Open house, and even achieve the position of a universal favourite, without ever being asked to dinner by one Of the numerous friends who partake Of your good cheer with affectionate regularity - without penetrating an inch farther into the inner life, the Me z'nzfz'me, of your most frequent Visitor than you did on the day of his first Visit. He calls you thou, speaks Of you as carino, even poverino - if he is really fond Of you - displays a delicate ingenuity in rendering you a thousand little useless services - and, in proportion to the verity of his regard for you, will lend an eager hand to the dissection Of your moral character, or t0' the dis semination amongst your other friends Of a scandalous rumour affecting your solvency, the Virtue Of your wife, or the reputation Of your daughter. A society like that Of Florence is hospitable neither in deed nor in thought; but at least it does not pretend to be so; or, indeed, to be anything in particular, save amusing, free and easy in morals, not manners - for nowhere are the outward forms Of decorum more scrupulously adhered to than in Florence. F irenze la Bella is frankly selfish, unreservedly cynical, and has the courage of its convictions; whereas the upper and middle classes Of Vienna lay claim to all sorts of Old-fashioned Virtues to them verily unknown.
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