Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/191

Rh oblige you in this respect, for I myself long to go there; but I must beseech of you to have patience with me yet a moment, and to hear what I have to tell you about Switzerland, and you will then acknowledge that the contemplation of the life and condition of a Confederate State of high development, is not unnecessary for the forming a correct judgment on one which is strong, after such a state of development; in a word, the perfect knowledge of life in Switzerland affords an insight into the Italian question, in its deepest significance—the human.

And do not all the higher political questions of the present time—and a great and glorious time it is, nor would I willingly have lived during any other—tend in all their bearings to the question:

Under what form of government can human and social life attain to its noblest and fullest prosperity?

A state which approaches to this condition, may serve as a model for one which is endeavoring after it.

The highest well-being to the people is also the people's highest and most sacred right.

Therefore, my R——, if you love Italy, and its young, freedom-seeking life, do not object to spend yet a few moments with me in contemplating life in the country where its noblest refugees have, in bloody and dark times, found an asylum against persecution, where they last breathed the air of freedom and learned the laws of self-government.

For this purpose, I will henceforth contract my copious journal to the notice of a few essential data, and advance with seven-mile steps through countries