Fifteen Days: An Extract from Edward Colvil's Journal

by Mary Lowell Putnam

"That their being there was enough."

"Dr. Falter is not an inhuman man, Harry."

"No, indeed. He is only not a free man."

"You mean to say these precautions are a necessity of his position. It is true; and there is his justification. He has a good heart; he would rather be served through love than fear. As things are, he must base his authority on both."

"Is it not terrible, when law and opinion, which should restrain from tyranny, compel to it?"

"Let us talk of something else."

The Doctor himself led the way to a new topic. He stopped to admire the great plain which surrounded us. As we walked on again, he spoke of our magnificent prairies, of the pampas of South America, of the landes of Gascony, of the pusztas of Hungary, all of which he had seen, and of which he discriminated for us the characteristic features. He spoke of the love which the inhabitant of these immense extents feels for them,—equal to that with which the dweller on the coast, or the mountaineer, regards his home; a love, the intensity of which is due to the emotions of sublimity which they, like the ocean and grand highland scenery, excite, and debarred from which, he whose life they have exalted pines with a nameless want. The Doctor passed to the Campagna of Rome, where Harry was at home,—and I, too, through imagination. Our conversation left its record on the scene we were passing through. The Doctor, illustrating his descriptions, pointed out now this, now that feature of our own landscape. The name he associated with it rested there. Fidenæ, Antemnæ, have thus made themselves homes on beautiful undulations of our Campagna, never to be dislodged for me.

The Doctor left us presently, as he was in the habit of doing on our walks, and went on a little before. Harry and I continued to talk of Italy,—of all that it has given to the world of example and of warning. We talked of its ancient fertility and beauty, and of the causes of its decline. We talked of its earlier and later republican days; of its betrayal by the selfish ambition and covetousness of unworthy sons; of the introduction of masses of foreign slaves; of the consequent degradation of labor, once so honorable there; of the absorption of landed property in a few hands; of the gradual reduction of freemen to a condition hopeless as that of slaves; of the conversion of men of high race—and who should have been capable, by natural endowment, of what humanity has shown of best and greatest—into parasites, hireling bravoes, and shameless mendicants; of the revival of its primitive heroism in its early Christians; of its many and strenuous efforts after renovation; of the successes it attained only to be thrown back into ruin by its misleaders and misrulers. Harry has as warm hopes for Italy as I have, and his nearer knowledge of her people has not rendered his faith in them less confident than mine. We talked of the value of traditions, and especially of those which a people cherishes in regard to its own origin and early history. I found that Harry had interested himself very much in the ancient history of Italy, and in the questions concerning the origin of its different races. In the morning I had seen the poetical side of his mind, and had received an impression of his general culture. I now became aware of the thoroughness and exactness of his special studies.