strange to ascribe any serious effect to the works of poets and
romancists; but in the Italy of that date there were no newspapers to
speak of; the ordinary channels of opinion were blocked up. Books were
still not only read, but discussed and thought over, and every slight
allusion to the times was instantly applied. In the prevailing
listlessness, the mere fact of increased mental activity was of
importance. A spark of genius does much to raise a nation. It is in
itself the incontrovertible proof that the race lives: a dead people
does not produce men of genius. Whatever awakes one part of the
intelligence reacts on all its parts. You cannot lift, any more than
you can degrade, the heart of man piecemeal. In this sense not
literature only but also music helped, who can say how effectually, to
bring Italy back to life. The land was refreshed by a flood of purely
national song, full of the laughter and the tears of Italian
character, of the sunshine and the storms of Italian nature. Music,
the only art uncageable as the human soul, descended as a gift from
heaven upon the people whose articulate utterance was stifled. And

... No speech may evince
Feeling like music.






CHAPTER II

THE WORK OF THE CARBONARI