Tuesday, 24th.
Since the tale of the _Drummer-boy_ has touched your heart, it
should be easy for you this morning to do your composition for
examination--_Why you love Italy_--well. Why do I love Italy? Do
not a hundred answers present themselves to you on the instant? I
love Italy because my mother is an Italian; because the blood that
flows in my veins is Italian; because the soil in which are buried
the dead whom my mother mourns and whom my father venerates is
Italian; because the town in which I was born, the language that I
speak, the books that educate me,--because my brother, my sister,
my comrades, the great people among whom I live, and the beautiful
nature which surrounds me, and all that I see, that I love, that I
study, that I admire, is Italian. Oh, you cannot feel that
affection in its entirety! You will feel it when you become a man;
when, returning from a long journey, after a prolonged absence, you
step up in the morning to the bulwarks of the vessel and see on the
distant horizon the lofty blue mountains of your country; you will
feel it then in the impetuous flood of tenderness which will fill
your eyes with tears and will wrest a cry from your heart. You will
feel it in some great and distant city, in that impulse of the soul
which will impel you from the strange throng towards a workingman
from whom you have heard in passing a word in your own tongue. You
will feel it in that sad and proud wrath which will drive the blood
to your brow when you hear insults to your country from the mouth
of a stranger. You will feel it in more proud and vigorous measure
on the day when the menace of a hostile race shall call forth a
tempest of fire upon your country, and when you shall behold arms
raging on every side, youths thronging in legions, fathers kissing
their children and saying, "Courage!" mothers bidding adieu to
their young sons and crying, "Conquer!" You will feel it like a joy
divine if you have the good fortune to behold the re-entrance to
your town of the regiments, weary, ragged, with thinned ranks, yet
terrible, with the splendor of victory in their eyes, and their
banners torn by bullets, followed by a vast convoy of brave
fellows, bearing their bandaged heads and their stumps of arms
loftily, amid a wild throng, which covers them with flowers, with
blessings, and with kisses. Then you will comprehend the love of
country; then you will feel your country, Enrico. It is a grand and
sacred thing. May I one day see you return in safety from a battle
fought for her, safe,--you who are my flesh and soul; but if I
should learn that you have preserved your life because you were
concealed from death, your father, who welcomes you with a cry of
joy when you return from school, will receive you with a sob of
anguish, and I shall never be able to love you again, and I shall
die with that dagger in my heart.