Marzio had risen early that morning, as has been said, and had left the house before any one but Gianbattista was up.  He was in reality far from inclined to drink his coffee in the company of his apprentice, and would have avoided it, if possible.  Nor did he care to meet Lucia until he had found time and occasion to refresh his anger.  His wife was too sleepy to quarrel, and hardly seemed to understand him when he gave her money and bade her look to Lucia’s outfit, adding that the wedding was to take place immediately.

“Will you not let me sleep in peace, even in the morning?” she groaned.

“Magari!  I wish you would sleep, and for ever!” growled Marzio, as he left the room.

He drank his coffee in silence, and went out.  After looking into the workshop he walked slowly away in the direction of the Capitol.  The damp morning air was pleasant to him, and the gloomy streets through which he passed were agreeable to his state of feeling.  He wished Home might always wear such a dismal veil of dampness, scirocco, and cloud.

A man in a bad humour will go out of his way to be rained upon and blown against by the weather.  We would all like to change our surroundings with our moods, to fill the world with sunshine when we are happy, and with clouds when we have stumbled in the labyrinths of life.  Lovers wish that the whole earth might be one garden, crossed and recrossed by silent moonlit paths; and when love has taken the one and left the other, he who stays behind would have his garden changed to an angry ocean, and the sweet moss banks to storm-beaten rocks, that he may drown in the depths, or be dashed to pieces by the waves, before he has had time to know all that he has lost.

As we grow older, life becomes the expression of a mood, according to the way we have lived.  He who seeks peace will find that with advancing age the peaceful moment, that once came so seldom, returns more readily, and that at last the moments unite to make hours, and the hours to build up days and years.  He who stoops to petty strife will find that the oft-recurring quarrel has power to perpetuate the discontented weakness out of which it springs, and that it can make all life a hell.  He who rejoices in action will learn that activity becomes a habit, and at last excludes the possibility of rest, and the desire for it; and his lot is the best, for the momentary gladness in a great deed well done is worth a millennium of sinless, nerveless tranquillity.  The positive good is as much better than the negative “non-bad,” as it is better to save a life than not to destroy a life.  But whatever temper of mind we choose will surely become chronic in time, and will be known to those among whom we live as our temper, our own particular temper, as distinguished from the tempers of other people.