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ours, who lives in Italy (where he also was brought before he
knew better), and who is one of the most delightful men I
know. Some day you must know him. I’ll bring you together
and then you’ll see what I mean. He’s Gilbert Osmond—
he lives in Italy; that’s all one can say about him or make
of him. He’s exceedingly clever, a man made to be distin-
guished; but, as I tell you, you exhaust the description when
you say he’s Mr. Osmond who lives tout betement in Italy.
No career, no name, no position, no fortune, no past, no fu-
ture, no anything. Oh yes, he paints, if you please—paints
in water-colours; like me, only better than I. His painting’s
pretty bad; on the whole I’m rather glad of that. Fortunately
he’s very indolent, so indolent that it amounts to a sort of
position. He can say, ‘Oh, I do nothing; I’m too deadly lazy.
You can do nothing to-day unless you get up at five o’clock
in the morning.’ In that way he becomes a sort of excep-
tion; you feel he might do something if he’d only rise early.
He never speaks of his painting—to people at large; he’s too
clever for that. But he has a little girl—a dear little girl; he
does speak of her. He’s devoted to her, and if it were a ca-
reer to be an excellent father he’d be very distinguished. But
I’m afraid that’s no better than the snuff-boxes; perhaps not
even so good. Tell me what they do in America,’ pursued
Madame Merle, who, it must be observed parenthetically,
did not deliver herself all at once of these reflexions, which
are presented in a cluster for the convenience of the reader.
She talked of Florence, where Mr. Osmond lived and where
Mrs. Touchett occupied a mediaeval palace; she talked of
Rome, where she herself had a little pied-a-terre with some

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