She could make a fine marriage.
But then, you see, I desire a serious person for my son-in-law.

What would you have?
One must be prudent." It is not easy to define exactly what a Roman means by the word "serious." In some measure it is the opposite of gay, and especially of what is young and unsettled.

The German use of the word Philistine expresses it very nearly.

A certain sober, straitlaced way of looking at life, which was considered to represent morality in Rome fifty years ago; a kind of melancholy superiority over all sorts of amusements, joined with a considerable asceticism and the most rigid economy in the household--that is what was meant by the word "serious." To-day its signification has been slightly modified, but a serious man--_un uomo serio_--still represents to the middle-class father the ideal of the correct son-in-law.
"Eh, without prudence!" exclaimed Carnesecchi, elliptically, as though to ask where he himself would have been had he not possessed prudence in abundance.
"Exactly," answered Marzio, biting off the end of a common cigar and fixing his eyes on the lawyer's thin, keen face.

"Precisely.