Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/443

Rh with doubtful hands. This made his book more than a book; it is an act which cannot do otherwise than serve the fatherland. The subject is now open. Others will follow, criticising, correcting, completing. I am merely one of those—God grant there be many!—who tread in Gioberti's footsteps.” Balbo, agreeing with Gioberti in the moral ideal, and also in the question of an Italian confederation of states, such as are determined by nature and history, yet separates from him in other questions. Although sincerely devoted to the Catholic Church, he will not have the Pope as President of the New Italy, and lays an exclusive weight upon Italy's independence of all foreign powers, as the condition on which the renewal of her inward independence is to be accomplished.

New works of Gioberti and Balbo, all eagerly received by the Italian public, developed both their points of view. The former was that of the priest, the latter that of the layman. But both were alike sincere lovers of Italian liberty and development. Gioberti, though a Catholic priest, was opposed to the Jesuits.

An extensive literary movement arose in the northern portion of Italy, which produced a literature, which I will call the politico-patriotic. This might be said to have commenced with the Piedmontese Alfiere, who infused into his tragedies the magnanimous hatred which his powerful mind cherished against all oppression, especially foreign, and the love that he bore to