ctual good; and, third,
to prefer a seeming outward peace to an inward life. This policy may
change its opposition from the tyrannical to the insidious; it can
know no other change. Yet do I meet persons who call themselves
Americans,--miserable, thoughtless Esaus, unworthy their high
birthright,--who think that a mess of pottage can satisfy the wants of
man, and that the Viennese listening to Strauss's waltzes, the Lombard
peasant supping full of his polenta, is _happy enough_. Alas: I have
the more reason to be ashamed of my countrymen that it is not among
the poor, who have so much, toil that there is little time to think,
but those who are rich, who travel,--in body that is, they do not
travel in mind. Absorbed at home by the lust of gain, the love of
show, abroad they see only the equipages, the fine clothes, the
food,--they have no heart for the idea, for the destiny of our own
great nation: how can they feel the spirit that is struggling now in
this and others of Europe?

But of the hopes of Italy I will write more fully in another letter,
and state what I have seen, what felt, what thought. I went from
Milan, to Pavia, and saw its magnificent Certosa, I passed several
hours in examining its riches, especially the sculptures of its
facade, full of force and spirit. I then went to Florence by Parma
and Bologna. In Parma, though ill, I went to see all the works of the
masters. A wonderful beauty it is that informs them,--not that which
is the chosen food of my soul, yet a noble beauty, and which did its
message to me also. Those works are failing; it will not be useless to
describe them in a book. Beside these pictures, I saw nothing in Parma
and Modena; these states are obliged to hold their breath while their
poor, ignorant sovereigns skulk in corners, hoping to hide from the
coming storm. Of all this more in my next.

LETTER XVII.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ROME IN THE SPRING.--THE POPE.--ROME AS
A CAPITAL.--TUSCANY.--THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS THERE JUST
ESTABLISHED.--THE ENLIGHTENED MINDS AND AVAILABLE INSTRUCTORS OF
TUSCANY.--ITALIAN ESTIMATION OF PIUS IX., AND THE INFLUENCE,
PRESENT AND FUTURE, OF HIS LABORS.--FOREIGN INTRUSION THE CURSE OF
ITALY.--IRRUPTION OF THE AUSTRIANS INTO ITALY, AND ITS EFFECTS.--LOUIS
PHILIPPE'S APOSTASY TURNED TO THE ADVANTAGE OF FREEDOM.--THE GREAT
FETE AT FLORENCE IN HONOR OF THE GRANT OF A NATIONAL GUARD.--THE
AMERICAN SCULPTORS, GREENOUGH, CRAWFORD, AND THEIR PARTICIPATION I