Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/254

270 bright scene. The flames of freedom seemed to ascend in smoke, and from the Italy lately so loftily ostentatious, but so soon again subjected, we turned away—too readily mistrusting her, too easily grown cold towards her. Other European nations had done the same. In Switzerland, the nearest neighboring country to Italy, I had lived for several months without once having heard its name mentioned. People had no knowledge of its literature; they never inquired about its life. It was only when some new nocturnal attempt of Mazzini's was related in the newspapers, that the public attention was turned thither for a moment, and people shrugged their shoulders and thought no more of the subject. The name of Mazzini, and his sly, bloody outbreaks, had become in the eyes of the rest of Europe, representative of the efforts for freedom in Italy, and these seemed to resemble the fever paroxysms of a sick man. No wonder that it had fallen into discredit.

Piedmont alone, stood amongst the Italian states, as an object of esteem and hope for a constitutionally free people. But it stood alone, a small state, at the foot of the Alps, and all the rest of Italy lay enchained by despotic princes, and its own imbecility!

I now learned for the first time, that this Italy had a national party advocating liberty, but in a spirit very different from that of Mazzini, and in opposition to its red flag; one which, with the power of ideas, with the word and with the spirit, openly combated for the liberty of Italy, both the inward as well as the outward. Around this white flag, I saw assembled the noblest patriots, poets, and statesmen, of young