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But surely Sir John Seeley's argument, though undoubtedly telling as regards the sovereign independence of small States, tells for and not against the preservation of small nations. Was it to the interest of the world as a whole that Athens and Florence should be crushed? Is it not true, in spite of Treitschke, that the great things of earth have been the product of small peoples?
When Mordaunt went away all had been arranged, and when she sat down to write to Florence in London her hand was steady and composition easy. After the note was written she hesitated for a moment, and then resolutely fastened the envelope. A few days after Evelyn went to town, Dick, coming back from shooting one afternoon, met Tom Shanks on the marsh.
Among the latter is Vespucci, nephew of Amerigo Vespucci of Florence who, at his death, bequeathed his knowledge of navigation and cosmography to his nephew. This young man has, in fact, been sent by the King as pilot to the flagship and commissioned to take the astronomical observations.
Burton, in her heart, could hardly acquit him of having run out of town at the moment to avoid the arrival of Florence. They went upstairs, and the note was, in fact, read before the letter. "I hope there is nothing wrong at the parsonage," said Florence. "You see he says he will come back after one day." "Perhaps he has gone to tell them of this change in his prospects."
'Because the day'll come, and has been coming a long while, observed the other, bending low over his work, 'when to get half as much from that unfort'nate child of mine to get the trembling of a finger, or the waving of a hair would be to raise the dead. Florence softly put some money near his hand on the old boat, and left him.
During another of these yearly absences in Italy, I met various interesting men, and, among these, at Florence the syndic Ubaldino Peruzzi, a descendant of the great Peruzzis of the middle ages, and one of the last surviving associates of Cavour.
But at the time we write, Florence had passed through her ages of primitive religions and republican simplicity, and was fast hastening to her downfall. The genius, energy, and prophetic enthusiasm of Savonarola had made, it is true, a desperate rally on the verge of the precipice; but no one man has ever power to turn back the downward slide of a whole generation.
In fact, never before had Florence been so impressed with herself; never before, indeed, had she been a member of a grown-up non-family party; never before had she gone walking with an actual adult young man for her escort; and she felt that she owed it to her position to appear in as brilliant an aspect as possible.
I mention them to account for a grave misdemeanour the fact that after the first year I rudely neglected Mrs. Meldrum. She had written to me from Florence after my mother's death and had mentioned in a postscript that in our young lady's calculations the lowest numbers were now Italian counts.
Evelyn has the simplicity, the tenderness, of Alice, with the refinement and culture of Florence herself; not the genius, not the daring spirit, not the almost fearful brilliancy of that ill-fated being, but with a taste as true to the Beautiful, with a soul as sensitive to the Sublime! In Evelyn's presence I feel a sense of peace, of security, of home!
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