lages 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 Gesu! 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 Forli, 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.

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