Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/414

424 its right, to raise the sense of duty, and to direct their, love to every thing which is pure and noble.

As regards Bianchini's great works Il Ben Vivere Sociale, I must say that I have read some chapters with the sincerest pleasure, especially that on luxury, a subject which I have nowhere seen better or more perfectly treated. But as to the question of the means by which a fallen people are to be again raised, and luxury again become a source of the people's prosperity instead of its corruption, as to the question of what can produce the “higher tact which assigns the true proportion and the proper guidance in the use of the gifts of life,” Bianchini is, in his book, as little capable of giving any answer, as he was during my conversation with him. He recommends “a good will towards, and a mind awakened to, the best interests of the public, in the ruling powers.” Of the only fully effectual and great means by which a free people can advance, and a fallen people again raise themselves—nobler freedom in every branch of political and civil life—of this, the Neapolitan Minister of the Interior and of Police has not any conception. If he had, he would not, probably, long have remained in his post.

October 1st.—I have been spending some days in seeing that which is best and worst in Naples. I have so often heard spoken of “the frightfully miserable condition of the Neapolitan population,” that I took a little carriage, and expressly commanding the driver to take me to the very worst quarters, both of the city and the suburbs, found, to my surprise, considerably less misery than I expected. I saw, everywhere, the