homage must go straight to his heart. And I should think the plebeians
of the country very exacting, if, after such an intoxicating festival,
they were to complain of wanting bread.

Let us seek a little repose on the other side of the Apennines.
Although the population may not be sufficiently sheltered by a chain,
of mountains, you will find in the towns and villages the stuff for a
noble nation. The ignorance is still very great; the blood ever
boiling, and the hand ever quick; but already we find men who reason.
If the workman of the towns be not successful, he guesses the reason;
he seeks a remedy, he looks forward, he economizes. If the tenant be
not rich, he studies with his landlord the means of becoming so.
Everywhere agriculture is making progress, and it will ere long have
no further progress to make. Man becomes better and greater by dint of
struggling with Nature. He learns his own value, he sees whither he is
tending; in cultivating his field, he cultivates himself.

I am compelled in strict truth to admit that religion loses ground a
little in these fine provinces. I vainly sought in the towns of the
Adriatic for those mural inscriptions of _Viva Gesù! Viva Maria!_ and
so on, which had so edified me on the other side of the Apennines. At
Bologna I read sonnets at the corners of all the streets,--sonnet to
Doctor Massarenti, who cured Madame Tagliani; sonnet to young
Guadagni, on the occasion of his becoming Bachelor of Arts, etc., etc.
At Faenza, these mural inscriptions evinced a certain degree of
fanaticism, but the fanaticism of the dramatic art: _Viva la Ristori!
Viva la diva Rossi!_ At Rimini, and at Forlì, I read _Viva Verdi!_
(which words had not then the political significance they have
recently attained,) _Viva la Lotti!_ together with a long list of
dramatic and musical celebrities.