Page:The drama of three hundred and sixty-five days.djvu/109

SCENES IN THE GREAT WAR to ask for it. And neither was it necessary that we should do so. The treaty that bound Italy to England was not written on a scrap of paper. It was in our blood, born of our devotion to humanity, to justice, to liberty, and to the memory of our great men. Therefore, with the world in arms about her, let Italy do what she thought best for herself, and the bond between us would not be broken! How the sequel has justified our faith! And when the great hour struck at last, after ten months of suspense, and Italy—ready, fully equipped, united—found the voice with which she proclaimed war, what a voice it was! Eloquent voices she had had throughout, in her Press as well as in her legislative chambers—Morelli's, Barzini's, Albertini's, Malagocli's, not to speak of Sartorio's, Ferrero's, Annie Vivanti's, and many more—but it quickens my pulse to remember that it was the voice of a poet which at the final moment was to speak for the Italian soul. Friends newly arrived from Italy tell me that not even in Rome (where one always feels as if one were living on the borderland of the old world and the new, with thousands of years behind and thousands of years in front) can anybody remember anything so moving as the substance and the reception of Gabriele d'Annunzio's speech from the balcony of the Hotel Regina. We can well imagine it. The Rh