active and pure--the more confined the limits of the
circle, the more ardent the patriotism. In small states, opinion is
concentrated and strong--every eye reads your actions--your public
motives are blended with your private ties--every spot in your narrow
sphere is crowded with forms familiar since your childhood--the applause
of your citizens is like the caresses of your friends. But in large
states, the city is but the court: the provinces--unknown to you,
unfamiliar in customs, perhaps in language--have no claim on your
patriotism, the ancestry of their inhabitants is not yours. In the
court you desire favor instead of glory; at a distance from the court,
public opinion has vanished from you, and self-interest has no
counterpoise.

Italy, Italy, while I write, your skies are over me--your seas flow
beneath my feet, listen not to the blind policy which would unite all
your crested cities, mourning for their republics, into one empire;
false, pernicious delusion! your only hope of regeneration is in
division. Florence, Milan, Venice, Genoa, may be free once more, if
each is free. But dream not of freedom for the whole while you enslave
the parts; the heart must be the centre of the system, the blood must
circulate freely everywhere; and in vast communities you behold but a
bloated and feeble giant, whose brain is imbecile, whose limbs are dead,
and who pays in disease and weakness the penalty of transcending the
natural proportions of health and vigour.

Thus thrown back upon themselves, the more ardent qualities of Glaucus
found no vent, save in that overflowing imagination which gave grace to
pleasure, and poetry to thought. Ease was less despicable than
contention with parasites and slaves, and luxury could yet be refined
though ambition could not be ennobled. But all that was best and
brightest in his soul woke at once when he knew Ione. Here was an
empire, worthy of demigods to attain; here was a glory, which the
reeking smoke of a foul society could not soil or dim. Love, in every
time, in every state, can thus find space for its golden altars. And
tell me if there ever, even in the ages most favorable to glory, could
be a triumph more exalted and elating than the conquest of one noble
heart?

And whether it was that this sentiment inspired him, his ideas glowed
more brightly, his soul seemed more awake and more visible, in Ione's
presence. If natural to love her, it was natural that she should retu