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240 men loved Italy with a jealous and passionate love, and both lashed Italy for the faults of her decadence—even as all those who have loved her deeply have reproached her bitterly. And here there is food for the thought of those who regard all that surrounds them as perfect and heroic, who cannot unite the dart of Archilochus to the song of Pindar, who fancy that patriotism is composed of caresses and flatteries.

In Carducci this passion for Italy came chiefly from the practice of art: in Oriani it came from meditation on the past. The former was a lyrist who in the depths of history saw only an indefinite Nemesis; the latter, a “prophet of the past” who brought the dead to life that they might tell their secret to the living, a man who could discern in the nation’s experience the manifold elements of an age-long plot, and fateful preparations for the future. Equally intense in their adoration, they drew their nourishment from different sources—those of Carducci more traditional and literary, those of Oriani more conscious and political. Oriani’s eloquence was more excited and more modern, and his view, trained to the telescopic perspectives of philosophy, was of longer reach.

To those who have been slow to perceive or quick to forget, this comparison will seem strange and irreverent. Interest in Oriani was revived