Now, the question is not whether any kind of resistance would not be pardonable against such a state of things, but it is this: what species of resistance is most likely to succeed? This is the real inquiry; and I don't think it demands much knowledge of mankind and the world to say that stabbing a cadet in the back as he leaves a café, shooting a solitary sentinel on his post, or even assassinating his corporal as he walks home of an evening, are exactly the appropriate methods for reforming a state or remodelling a constitution. Had the Lombards devoted themselves heart and hand to the material prosperity of their country,—educated their people, employed them in useful works, fostered their rising and most prosperous silk manufactories,—they would have attained to a weight and consideration in the Austrian Empire which would have enabled them not to solicit, but dictate the terms of their administration.
A few years back, as late as '47, Milan, I am told, was more than the rival of Vienna in all that constitutes the pride and splendor of a capital city; and the growing influence of her higher classes was already regarded with jealousy by the Austrian nobility. Look what a revolution has made her now! Her palaces are barracks; her squares are encampments; artillery bivouac in her public gardens; and the rigors of a state of siege penetrate into every private house, and poison all social intercourse.
You may rely upon one thing, Tom, and it is this: that no government ever persisted in a policy of oppression towards a country that was advancing on the road of prosperity. It is to the disaffected, dispirited, bankrupt people—idle and cantankerous, wasting their resources, and squandering their means of wealth—that cabinets play the bully. They grind them the way a cruel colonel flogs a condemned regiment. Let industry and its consequences flow in; let the laborer be well fed, and housed, and clothed; and the spirit of independence in him will be a far stronger and more dangerous element to deal with than the momentary burst of passion that comes from a fevered heart in a famished frame! Ask a Cabinet Minister if he wouldn't be more frightened by a deputation from the City, than if the telegraph told him a Chartist mob was moving on London? We live in an age of a very peculiar kind, and where real power and real strength are more respected than ever they were before.
Don't you think I have given you a dose of politics? Well, happily for you, I must desist now, for Cary has come to order me off to bed. It is only two p.m., but the siesta is now one of my habits, and so pleasant a one that I intend to keep it when I get well again.
Nine o'clock, Evening.
Here I am again at my desk for you, though Cary has only given me leave to devote half an hour to your edification.
What a good girl it is,—so watchful in all her attention, and with that kind of devotion that shows that her whole heart is engaged in what she is doing! The doctor may fight the malady, Tom, but, take my word for it, it is the nurse that saves the patient. If ever I raised my eyelids, there she was beside me! I could n't make a sign that I was thirsty till she had the drink to my lips. She had, too, that noiseless, quiet way with her, so soothing to a sick man; and, above all, she never bothered with questions, but learned to guess what I wanted, and sat patiently watching at her post.
It is a strange confession to make, but the very best thing I know of this foreign tour of ours is that it has not spoiled that girl; she has contracted no taste for extra finery in dress, nor extra liberty in morals; her good sense is not overlaid by the pretentious tone of those mock nobles that run about calling each other count and marquis, and fancying they are the great world. There she is, as warmhearted, as natural, and as simple—in all that makes the real excellence of simplicity—as when she left home. And now, with all this, I 'd wager a crown that nineteen young fellows out of twenty would prefer Mary Anne to her. She is, to be sure, a fine, showy girl, and has taken to a stylish line of character so naturally that she never abandons it.
I assure you, Tom, the way she used to come in of a morning to ask me how I was, and how I passed the night; her graceful stoop to kiss me; her tender little caressing twaddle, as if I was a small child to be bribed into black-bottle by sugar-candy,—were as good as a play. The little extracts, too, that she made from the newspapers to amuse me were all from that interesting column called fashionable intelligence, and the movements in fashionable life, as if it amused me to hear who Lady Jemima married, and who gave away the bride. Cary knew better what I cared for, and told me about the harvest and the crops, and the state of the potatoes, with now and then a spice of the foreign news, whenever there was anything remarkable. To all appearance, we are not far from a war; but where it 's to be, and with whom, is hard to say. There 's no doubt but fighting is a costly amusement; and I believe no country pays so heavily for her fun in that shape as England; but, nevertheless, there is nothing would so much tend to revive her drooping and declining influence on the Continent as a little brush at sea. She is, I take it, as good as certain to be victorious; and the very fervor of the enthusiasm success would evoke in England would go far to disabuse the foreigner of his notion that we are only eager about printing calicoes, and sharpening Sheffield ware. Believe me, it is vital to us to eradicate this fallacy; and until the world sees a British fleet reeling up the Downs with some half-dozen dismasted line-of-battle ships in their wake, they 'll not be convinced of what you and I know well,—that we are just the same people that fought the Nile and Trafalgar. Those Industrial Exhibitions, I think, brought out a great deal of trashy sentimentality about universal brotherhood, peace, and the rest of it. I suppose the Crystal Palace rage was a kind of allegory to show that they who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones; but our ships, Tom,—our ships, as the song says, are "hearts of oak"! Here's Cary again, and with a confounded cupful of something green at top and muddy below! Apothecaries are filthy distillers all the world over, and one never knows the real blessing of health till one has escaped from their beastly brewings. Good-night.
Saturday Morning.