The Italy of the Italians (1906)
^ A c c ••••/« C t • • ' • ', t c • ICC t c I t « c c c c ^ c c c c ' c < «.c f ' r r t r r = 2 < o 2 tJ o< Q < O 2 1/5 5 The Italy of the Italians Bv Helen Zimmern Author of " Schopenhauer, his Life and Philosophy/ " Lessing, his Life and Works," " The Epic of Kings," etc., etc. LONDON : SIR ISAAC PITMAN AND SONS, LTD., NO : 1 AMEN CORNER, E.C. ^ ^ 1906 Italy, my Italy f Queen Mary's saying serves for me {When fortune's malice Lost her Calais), Open my heart and you will see " Graved inside of it, Italy." Such lovers old are I and she, So it always was, so shall ever be t FOREWORD Since that memorable year, 1870, Italy has, happily, ceased to be "a geographical expression," as Prince Metternich contemptuously phrased it. Nevertheless, though thousands of travellers over-run her fair borders in the course of each year, in ever increasing numbers, to the greater proportion she still remains little else than a geographical expression, and her citizens are regarded either as the staffage to a lovely landscape or as the custodians of her artistic treasures. These travellers, too, seldom know the language of the land and hence are apt to get their information from guides, hotel porters, cabmen, and others the like. As a result they may see towns and museums but they get little or no idea of Italy's real life and civilization. Few stop even to wonder what are the impulses, the aims, the hopes, the ambitions that cause the heart of this land to pulsate with energy, that virtue on which her greatest poet, Dante, laid such stress.
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