Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/456

466 Italy! Spite of thy rainy days thou art to me, in thy conco d'oro, as a golden memory of splendor and color, unlike any other city of earth.

Yet, who does not praise the beauty of Italy, in her scenery, her cities, and her art? But, the people of Italy, who praises them? How usual it is for foreigners to speak of them with mistrustful reservation! And yet, it seems to me, that there has been quite too small a recognition of their peculiar goodness and excellence. Some one, I do not remember whom, has remarked, that when the Italian is kind and good, he is so in a higher and more perfect degree than the man of any other nation. And, as with the grape, which at a certain period of its ripeness, is said to be nobly ripe—edel-reif, is the expression on the Rhine—so may it be said of the human being of Italian blood, fully matured to goodness, he or she is then “nobly matured.” To strict conscientiousness, noble-mindedness, earnestness, all the virtues which adorn humanity, must then be added, refinement, beauty, a nameless grace which is more easily felt than described, and which is like the flower and the perfume of the Italian individuality. I have seen and experienced this amongst the Italian men, especially of the learned class—not the clergy—in all the states of Italy, where I have as yet been. Social-life, feelings, thoughts, receive thence, as it were, a higher, clearer coloring, a deeper harmony. But, when that which now is peculiar to the few, becomes peculiar to the many—because this beautiful individuality lies in the depth of the Italian popular character—when religion and the constitution of the states; popular-life and domestic-life;