this was the feeling of France
alone; it might be expressed more loudly there, but it was, in fact,
universal. The enemies of progress and the partisans of political
subversion looked on England as their worst adversary: the former
charged her with being the hotbed of revolutionary propagandism; the
latter, perhaps with more reason, considered the English aristocracy
as the corner-stone of the social edifice of Europe. England ought to
be popular with the friends of gradual reform and regular progress,
but a host of prejudices, recollections, passions, produced the
contrary effect. With but little alteration the lines here condensed
might have been written to-day.

A book on railways by Count Petitti had been prohibited in Piedmont.
That railways were connected with the Powers of Darkness was then a
general opinion, shared in particular by Pope Gregory. Cavour reviewed
the book in the _Revue nouvelle_, which was also prohibited, but
sundry copies of it were smuggled into Italy, and one even reached
the king. While Petitti had avoided all political allusions, Cavour's
article abounds in them: railways would promote the moral union of
Italy, which must precede the conquest of national independence.
Municipal jealousies, intellectual backwardness, would disappear, and,
when that happened, nothing could prevent the accomplishment of the
object which was the passionate desire of all--emancipation. A very
small number of ideas forms the intellectual hinge of man in the
aggregate; of these patriotism is only second in importance to
religion. Any conception of national dignity in the masses was
impossible without the pride of nationality. Every private interest,
every political dissension, should be laid aside that Italian
independence might become a fact. Cavour always spoke of Italy--not of
Piedmont, not of Lombardy and Venetia. Rome, still of all cities the
richest in precious memories and splendid hopes, would be the centre
of an iron network uniting the whole peninsula. Some well-intentioned
patriots objected to the increase of railway communication with
Austria from the fear that it would strengthen her military and
political hold over her Italian provinces. Cavour answered that the
great events at hand could not be delayed by the shortening of the
number of hours between Vienna and Milan. On the other hand, when the
relations arising out of conquest were replaced by those of friendship
and equity, rapid communication wo