Page:The National Idea in Italian Literature.djvu/40

 which at times resembles the national Messianism of the poets of Poland, in the little book. Ai giovani d'Italia, published in 1860. It is there that he declares that Nationality is the sign placed by God on the brow of every people; it is the sign of its special mission, which must be developed in harmony with the special missions of the other peoples, and the union of all these missions, when fulfilled, will one day represent la patria di tutti, la patria delle patrie, l'Umanità; "and only then will the word foreigner pass from the speech of men." But the individual can do nothing to actualise this conception, save in union with those who share his nationality.

"When God created Italy, He smiled upon her, and gave her as boundaries the two most sublime things that He placed in Europe, symbols of Eternal Power and of Eternal Motion, the Alps and the Sea. From the immense circle of the Alps descends a wonderful chain of continuous ranges that reaches to where the sea bathes her, and even beyond into severed Sicily. And, where the mountains do not gird her, the sea girds her as with a loving embrace; that sea which our forefathers called mare nostro. Scattered around her in that sea, like gems fallen from her diadem, are Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, and other lesser islands, where the nature of the soil and the structure of the mountains and the language and the hearts of men, all speak of Italy. Within those boundaries all the nations passed, one after the other, as conquerors and savage persecutors; but they have not been able to extinguish the holy name of Italy, nor the innermost energy of the 28