Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/253

Rh was good, tranquil, agreeable, but—not inspiring. There was good preaching, and good work, and a sufficiency of good society; but I felt the want of large views, of breadth, of horizon. The church spoke merely of the salvation of the individual soul. It turned away from science, and from the largeness of general life, as it did not concern “our city.” Higher life and interests come to me from a distance; come from the country, on the other side of the Alps.

A Roman fugitive, who had lived in Lausanne since the unsuccessful revolution of 1848, and who was called Professor Arduini, commenced a course of lectures on the more modern Italian literature. He was an ardent patriot, had taken part in the Italian struggle for liberty, both in word and spirit. His lectures were, before every thing else, intended to exhibit the national party in the young, feeling, thinking, aspiring Italy.

In my far distant, northern land, I had, like many another, listened with sympathy to the exulting shout of Italy, on the ascension of Pio Nono to the Papal throne. Italy hailed him as her saviour from foreign oppression. The heart-rending biography of Silvio Pellico. “Le mie prigione,” imprisonment in Spielburg, had found its way to our home and taught us to detest the power of Austria over Italy. We contemplated with joy, the handsome, benevolent features of the new liberator, in the portraits which were sent to us, of him. They seemed to promise a bright future for the beautiful, long-subjected country. But the tune soon changed. Delirious festivities and great words, and, soon after, bloody oppression darkened the