Years Of Neglect, Oppression, And Misrule,
Have Been At Work, To Change Their Nature And Reduce Their Spirit;
Miserable Jealousies,
Fomented by petty Princes to whom union was
destruction, and division strength, have been a canker at their
root of
Nationality, and have barbarized their language; but the
good that was in them ever, is in them yet, and a noble people may
be, one day, raised up from these ashes. Let us entertain that
hope! And let us not remember Italy the less regardfully, because,
in every fragment of her fallen Temples, and every stone of her
deserted palaces and prisons, she helps to inculcate the lesson
that the wheel of Time is rolling for an end, and that the world
is, in all great essentials, better, gentler, more forbearing, and
more hopeful, as it rolls!
Footnotes:
{1} This was written in 1846.
{2} A far more liberal and just recognition of the public has
arisen in Westminster Abbey since this was written.
*** END OF PICTURES FROM ITALY by Charles Dickens ***
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