The people embrace one another,
upset one another, and fight with one another--all in the name of
Sant' Antonio. But see! The statue of the worthy Saint is coming out
of the church: a wooden doll, with flaming red cheeks. _Victoria_! Off
go the petards! The women weep with joy--the children cry out at the
top of their shrill voices, "_Viva Sant' Antonio_!" At night there are
fireworks: a balloon shaped in the semblance of the Saint ascends amid
the shouts of the people, and bursts in grand style right over the
church. Verily, unless Sant' Antonio be very difficult to please, such
homage must go straight to his heart. And I should think the plebeians
of the country very exacting, if, after such an intoxicating festival,
they were to complain of wanting bread.
Let us seek a little repose on the other side of the Apennines.
Although the population may not be sufficiently sheltered by a chain,
of mountains, you will find in the towns and villages the stuff for a
noble nation. The ignorance is still very great; the blood ever
boiling, and the hand ever quick; but already we find men who reason.
If the workman of the towns be not successful, he guesses the reason;
he seeks a remedy, he looks forward, he economizes. If the tenant be
not rich, he studies with his landlord the means of becoming so.
Everywhere agriculture is making progress, and it will ere long have
no further progress to make. Man becomes better and greater by dint of
struggling with Nature.
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