has done its work, that, although other causes induced Italy to take
upon her shoulders the terrible burden of what was not an inevitable
war, the only causes that really, in the depths of her soul, liberated
her resolve were the admiration, the indignation and the heroic pity
inspired by the spectacle, incessantly renewed, of our unmerited
afflictions. You will not find in history a nobler sacrifice nor one
made for a nobler cause.

* * * * *




ON REREADING THUCYDIDES




XIII

ON REREADING THUCYDIDES


1

At moments above all when history is in the making, in these times
when great and as yet incomplete pages are being traced, pages by the
side of which all that had already been written will pale, it is a
good and salutary thing to turn to the past in search of instruction,
warning and encouragement. In this respect, the unwearying and