HERE
BELVISO
LIES
WHO DIED TO SAVE HIS FRIEND

Under this superscription we consigned to the dust the dust of our dear
benefactor; and that reverently done, we settled ourselves in Lucca,
where we have remained ever since, where I have written these pages,
where I intend to live and die. Of my true marriage with my beloved,
expect no raptures in this place, seek no further, ask no more. This is
holy ground. In all these years wherein she has been spared to be my
well of bliss, my fountain of nourishment, my stem of solace, I declare
with my hand on my heart, never for one moment did she cease to be my
loving, willing, chaste and discerning wife. We have been poor, for I
renounced my inheritance in favour of my next brother, retaining nothing
of it, and began the world again where I left it when I was driven from
Lucca by misfortunes; and by industry and thrift we have risen to a
competence enough to educate our children according to the degree marked
out by their birth. I did this deliberately, having found out by hard
experience that money was the bondslave of lust, and rank the
breastplate of inanity. Had I taken my wife to England I must have
retained my wretched panoply; but England also I renounced, and that
also deliberately. I shall take leave to close my relation with a few
words upon my choice of life.

It has been said, with truth and reason, that our vices are but the
excrescences of our virtuous essence. If I am justly to be called a Fool
then, and my folly a vice, it is because it has ever been a ruling need
of my nature to be naked, and to desire to deal nakedly with my
neighbours, who, to serve my ends, must themselves be unclad. Let the