“Il Calavrese abate Giovacchino
Di spirito profetico dotato.”
DANTE: _Paradiso_, Canto xii.
“Pater imposuit laborem legis, qui timor est; filius imposuit
laborem disciplinæ, qui sapientia est; spiritus sanctus exhibet
libertatem, quæ amor est.”
JOACHIM OF FLORA: _Liber Concordiæ_, ii.
I
“Italy is too long,” said the Italian. We were coming into Turin in the
dawn, amid burning mountains of rosy snow, and the train was moving
slowly, in hesitation, with pauses for reflection. “The line is single
in places,” he explained. “Italy is too narrow, too cramped by
mountain-chains, and above all too long. It is the trouble behind all
our politics. There are three Italies, three horizontal strata, that do
not interfuse—the industrial and intelligent North, the stagnant and
superstitious South, and the centre with Rome which is betwixt and
between.”
“But there is far more clericalism in the North than the South,” I said.
“The Church party is a political force.”
“Precisely what proves my case. In the North everything is more
efficient, even to the forces of reaction. The clericals are better
organised, and are, moreover, supported by the propertied atheists in
the interests of order. But the North is Europe—Germany, if you
will—the South is already Africa.” The train stopped again. He groaned.
“No unity possible.”
“No unity?” I exclaimed. “And what about Garibaldi and Mazzini and
United Italy?”
“It is a phrase. Italy is too long.”
I pondered over his words, and in imagination I saw again all the
Risorgimento museums, all the tablets in all the _loggias_ and town
halls recording those who had died for the Union of Italy, all the
statues of all the heroes, all the streets and piazzas dedicated to
them, while in my ears resounded all the artillery of applause booming
at that very moment throughout the length and narrowness of Italy in
celebration of the Jubilee of the Departure of the Thousand from Quarto.