the lottery, the offices are thronged with fathers and mothers of
families, who stint their children of bread to buy dearly a few hours of
golden illusion.... At the worst, there is the Monte di Pieta, as a last
resort."

It is true, as this writer says, that the pleasure-loving populace still
looks back fondly to the old Republican times of feasting and holidays;
but there is certainly no truth any more in the old idea that any part of
Italy is a place where people may be "idle with impunity," or make
amusement the serious business of life. I can remember that the book from
which I received my first impressions of geography was illuminated with a
picture professing to represent Italian customs. The spirit of inquiry had
long before caused me to doubt the exact fidelity of this representation;
but it cost me a pang to learn that the picture was utterly delusive. It
has been no part of my experience in Venice to see an Italian sitting upon
the ground, and strumming the guitar, while two gayly dressed peasants
danced to the music. Indeed, the indolence of Venetians is listless and
silent, not playful or joyous; and as I learned to know their life more
intimately, I came to understand that in many cases they are idle from
despair of finding work, and that indolence is as much their fate as their
fault. Any diligence of theirs is surprising to us of northern and free
lands, because their climate subdues and enervates us, and because we can
see before them no career open to intelligent industry. With the poorest,
work is necessarily a hand-to-hand struggle against hunger; with those who
would not absolutely starve without it, work is an inexplicable passion.

Partly because the ways of these people are so childlike and simple in
many things, and partly from one's own swindling tendency to take one's
self in (a tendency really fatal to all sincerity of judgment, and
incalculably mischievous to such downfallen peoples as have felt the