Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/454

470 issue of the war; but many also bowed their heads to chastisement, whilst they kept their faith in a future better day.

“It will—it must come!” say they, “but Italy must ripen for it,—and she does spiritually ripen every day! The national, the Italian party, becomes stronger every day, under the pressure of the foreign power, and the hatred which it inspires; it ripens through the memory of the past error, of the bitter conflict, and from the taste which it has of freedom. This has been baptized in blood, but it must be so baptized that we may learn rightly to understand it and ourselves.”

No one is more acute than the noble Count C. Balbo. in the detection of the errors of Italy and her blind flatterers, no one more hopeful for her future. In his excellent Summario della Storia d'Italia, a book which has already passed through ten editions, he considers that, from the struggle for freedom in the year 1848, a new period in the history of Italy, and a new development of her higher life, have begun, if Italy will only listen to the teachings of her misfortunes, and gather from her humiliations the fruit of self-knowledge. And it must be so. Her higher consciousness has awakened, and it cannot again die. The hour, the hour of resurrection must come, sooner or later. Thus speaks this noble friend of his country, who, a short time since, wrote the history of this latest struggle, although, with dimming eyes, he saw, spiritually, the future of Italy bright.

A great deal, it is evident, depends upon the conduct and progress of Piedmont. Its secure course