Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/436

452 The spring-time of humanity, on the contrary, always comes with something new; something beautiful or good, which no former occasion possessed; and we see—if we take a survey of the ages and of nations—that cultivation ascends, as it were, spirally. This is a very satisfactory position to recognize. It gives a desire both to live and to labor.

But what is human culture? That is the question. Is it a growth in splendor, such as many of the oriental states, Greece, and some of the later Italian republics, have presented it? Nay, then, we have not much to hope for in our future. Because we cannot expect to produce more brilliant events, greater men, warriors, statesmen, artists; actions more noble, or more beautiful works of art; and the people, and the states which have brought these forth, have nevertheless, after having flourished for a short time, passed in confusion and madness, or have sunk into spiritual inanity. What are we? What have we? What do we desire more than they? We who glance up admiringly at those works of art, which we could not equal, the Pyramids, the Parthenon, the Odyssey, the Pantheon, the Column of Trajan, La Divina Comedia, and the creations of Raphael, and Michael Angelo!—Let us speak it with humble joy—because the merit is only in a small degree ours—we love, however, we desire, however, something higher, something more! What? I will let Piedmont and the genius of young Italy, answer.

The whole of educated Europe, and also of America, knows Il Prighione, of Silvio Pelico, and also the heart-rending biographies of the prisoners in