country has its compensations. Anselmo, this first made me tremble in
my petty defiance,--I, an ephemera of May, defying the dominations of
eternity!--Not so,--not too lowly; I also am, and each limitation of
life is as well, a domination of eternity. But I saw that it was no
purpose of God to have destroyed Italy; when men in weakness and
wantonness suffered their liberties to be torn from them, suffered
themselves to become enslaved, there was compensation in that their sons
had chance for heroic growth; they might, in efforts for freedom, create
virtues that, born to freedom, they would never have known. I, too, had
my field; I lost it; my enemy was myself. But when I think of her--Ay,
there it is! Do not let me think of her! I become mad, when I think of
her!--At least, allow me this: God's ways are dark. Not that? Not even
that? I needed what I have? If my ambitions, my passions, my will, had
ruled, my soul would have remained null? Ah, friend, and is that so much
the worse? It is the soul that aches!--I am a man of the people, a
man who acts,--I _was_, I mean,--not a man who thinks; and all your
subtleties of word perchance entrap me. I am not wary when you come to
logic. See! I surrender point after point. I shall be dead soon, you
know; when this morning's sun shave have set, when the moon shall hold
the night in fee, I shall depart,--wing up and away;--is it, that, my
body already dead, my mind sickens and dies with it, bit after bit, and
so I yield, and attest, that, without the agony of my life, death had
failed to burst my soul's husk? Oh, for I was born of an earthy race,
blood ran thick in our veins, we were sensuous and passionate, the
breath and steam of pleasure stifled our brains, and our filmy eyes
could not see heaven. Yes, yes, I needed it all; but, friend, it is
pitiful.

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