And it was certainly
the climate which fostered the prolonged infancy of the nation, which
explained why such a democracy did not awaken to social ambition and
consciousness of itself. No doubt the poor of Naples and Rome suffered
from want; but they did not know the rancour which cruel winter implants
in men's hearts, the dark rancour which one feels on shivering with cold
while rich people are warming themselves before blazing fires. They did
not know the infuriated reveries in snow-swept hovels, when the guttering
dip burns low, the passionate need which then comes upon one to wreak
justice, to revolt, as from a sense of duty, in order that one may save
wife and children from consumption, in order that they also may have a
warm nest where life shall be a possibility! Ah! the want that shivers
with the bitter cold--therein lies the excess of social injustice, the
most terrible of schools, where the poor learn to realise their
sufferings, where they are roused to indignation, and swear to make those
sufferings cease, even if in doing so they annihilate all olden society!
And in that same clemency of the southern heavens Pierre also found an
explanation of the life of St. Francis,* that divine mendicant of love
who roamed the high roads extolling the charms of poverty. Doubtless he
was an unconscious revolutionary, protesting against the overflowing
luxury of the Roman court by his return to the love of the humble, the
simplicity of the primitive Church.
Pages:
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114