While I was visiting the holy house of Loretto, which, as all the
world knows, or ought to know, was transported by Angels, furniture
and all, from Palestine, to the neighbourhood of Ancona, a number of
pilgrims came in upon their knees, shedding tears and licking the
flags with their tongues. I thought these poor creatures belonged to
some neighbouring village, but I found out my mistake from a workman
of Ancona, who happened to be near me. "Sir," he said, "these unhappy
people must certainly belong to the other side of the Apennines, since
they still make pilgrimages. Fifty years ago we used to do the same
thing; we now think it better to work!"




CHAPTER VI.

THE MIDDLE CLASSES.


The middle class is, in every clime and every age, the foundation of
the strength of States. It represents not only the wealth and
independence, but the capacity and the morality of a people. Between
the aristocracy, which boasts of doing nothing, and the lower orders
who only work that they may not die of hunger, the middle class
advances boldly to a future of wealth and consideration. Sometimes the
upper class is hostile to progress, through fear of its results; too
often the lower class is indifferent to it, from ignorance of the
benefits it confers. The middle class has never ceased to tend towards
progress, with all its strength, by an irresistible impulse, and even