He was adored equally in the artistic and the social worlds, and was at
once the most cynical of Don Juans and the most unworldly of Don
Quixotes. He was a devoted and grateful friend, and a contemptuous but
not unforgetful enemy.
It was not since his celebrity that Edith had first met him; she had
known him intimately all her life. From her earliest childhood she had,
so to speak, been brought up on Landi; on Landi's music and Landi's
views of life. He had been her mother's music teacher soon after he
first made a name in London; and long before he was the star whose
singing or accompanying was a rare favour, and whose presence gave a
cachet to any entertainment.
How many poor Italians--yes, and many people of other nationalities--had
reason to bless his acquaintance! How kind, how warm-hearted, how
foolishly extravagant on others was Landi! His brilliant cleverness,
which made him received almost as an Englishman among English people,
was not, however, the cleverness of the _arriviste_. Although he had
succeeded, and success was his object, no one could be less
self-interested, less pushing, less scheming. In many things he was a
child.
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