Horace Greeley

“ These people have no proper pride, no manly shame, because they have no hope. Untaught, unskilled in industry, owning nothing, their government an absolute despotism, their labor only required at certain seasons, and deemed amply rewarded with a York shilling or eighteen pence per day, and themselves the virtual serfs of great landholders who live in Rome or Bologna and whom they rarely or never see—is it a wonder that they stoop to plead and whine for coppers around every carriage that traverses their country? That they fare miserably, their scanty rags and pinched faces sufficiently attest ”

“ We shall not be likely to appreciate less fully the merits of the wise Statesman, by whose measures a People's thrift and happiness are promoted—of the brave Soldier who joyfully pours out his blood in defense of the rights or in vindication of the honor of his Country—of the Sacred Teacher by whose precepts and example our steps are guided in the pathway to heaven—if we render fit honor also to those 'Captains of Industry' whose tearless victories redden no river and whose conquering march is unmarked by the tears of the widow and the cries of the orphan. ”

“ Desperate attempts at Hay-making engross the thoughts and efforts of a good many men and women, though the skies are black, rain falls at intervals, and a chill, heavy mist makes itself disagreeably familiar, while a thin, drifting fog limits the vision to a square mile or so. Some of the half-made hay in the meadows looks as though it had been standing out to bleach for the last fortnight. Even the Grass-land is often ridged so as to shed the water quickly, while deep ditches or drains do duty for fences. Fruit-trees are rarely seen ”

“ When the Peace Society shall have persuaded the Emperor Nicholas or Francis-Joseph to disband his armies and rely for the support of his government on its intrinsic justice and inherent moral force, I shall be ready to enter its ranks; but while Despotism, Fraud and Wrong are triumphantly upheld by Force, I do not see how Freedom, Justice and Progress can safely disclaim and repudiate the only weapons that tyrants fear—the only arguments they regard. ”

“ Time is on the popular side, and every hour's endurance adds strength to the Republic. It cannot be legally subverted; and should Force and Usurpation be attempted, its champions will not shrink from the encounter nor dread the issue. For well they know that the mind and heart of the People are on their side—that the French who earn their bread and are not ashamed to be seen shouldering a musket, so far as they have any opinion at all, are all for the Republic—that France comprises a Bonapartist clique, an Orleanist class, a Royalist party, and a Republican Nation. ”

“ The laws of the land should encourage every occupier to improve the land he holds, to expend capital and employ labor upon it, so as to increase its value and productive capacity from year to year; but the law of the British Empire discourages improvement and impedes the employment of labor by taking the product from the producer and giving it arbitrarily to the landlord. Yet the landlord influence in Parliament is so predominant, so overwhelming, that no repeal, no mitigation even, of this great wrong is probable; and every demand for it is overborne by a senseless outcry against Agrarianism. ”

“ Men and women work together, and almost equally, in the fields; and here, where the necessity is so palpably of Nature's creation, not Man's, the spectacle is far less revolting than on the fertile plains of Piedmont or Lombardy. The little patch of Wheat is so carefully reaped that scarcely a grain is left, and children bear the sheaves on their backs to the allotted shelter, while mothers and maidens are digging up the soil with the spade, and often pulling up the stubble with their hands, preparatory to another crop. ”

“ Paris is the Paradise of the Senses; a focus of Enjoyment, not of Happiness. Nowhere are Youth and its capacities more prodigally lavished; nowhere is Old Age less happy or less respected. Paris has tens of thousands who would eagerly pour out their hearts' blood for Liberty and Human Progress, but no class or clan who ever thought of denying themselves Wine and kindred stimulants in order that the Masses should be rendered worthier of Liberty and thus better fitted to preserve and enjoy it. ”

“ I never saw and cannot hope to see hereafter a region more blessed by Nature than the great plain of Upper Italy, whereof the Po is the life-blood. It is very fertile and beautiful where I first traversed it near its head, from the foot of Mount Cenis by Turin to Alessandria and Novi, on my way down to Genoa; yet it is richer and lovelier still where I have just recrossed it from the foot of the Apennines by Bologna, Ferrara, Rovigo and Padua on my way from Florence to Venice. ”

“ But the self-constituted arbiters who thus tell the American people that Art is not their province—that they should be content to grow Corn and Cotton, looking to Europe for the satisfaction of their less urgent necessities, their secondary wants—are they impartial advisers? Are they not palpably speaking in the interest of the rival producers of Europe, alarmed by the rapid growth and extension of American Art? Would they have taken so much trouble with us if American taste and skill were really the miserable abortions they represent them? ”

“ The sky was cloudless, as it mainly is here save in winter, but the day was not yet warm, for the summer nights are cooler here than in New-York, and the current English talk of the excessive heat which prevails in Rome at this season is calculated to deceive Americans. No one fails to realize from the first the great beauty and admirable accessories of this edifice, with the far-stretching but quite other than lofty pile of the Vatican on its right and its own magnificent colonnade in front, but you do not feel that it is lofty, nor spacious, nor anything but perfect. ”

“ With a fervent good-bye to the friends I leave on this side of the Atlantic, I turn my steps gladly and proudly toward my own loved Western home—toward the land wherein Man enjoys larger opportunities than elsewhere to develop the better and the worse aspects of his nature, and where Evil and Good have a freer course, a wider arena for their inevitable struggles, than is allowed them among the heavy fetters and cast-iron forms of this rigid and wrinkled Old World. ”

“ In a country where everything gravitates so intensely toward the Throne, there must be impediments to presentation at Court, if the Sovereign is to enjoy any leisure, peace, comfort, or even time for the most pressing public duties. There is and should be no absolute barrier to the presentation of any well-bred, well-behaved person, whether subject or foreigner; and, if it were as easy as visiting the Exhibition, the Queen would be required to hold a drawing-room every day, and devote the whole of it to unmeaning and useless introductions. ”

“ I have not seen a German quarreling or scolding anywhere in Europe. The deference of members of the same family to each other's happiness in cars, hotels and steamboats has that quiet, unconscious manner which distinguishes a habit from a holiday ornament. The entire absence of pretense, of stateliness, of a desire to be thought a personage and not a mere person, is scarcely more universal in Switzerland than here. But in fact I have found Aristocracy a chronic disease nowhere but in Great Britain. In France, there is absolutely nothing of it ”

“ It is but natural, therefore, that this grand conception of a comparison of the state of Industry in all Nations, by means of a World's Exhibition, should there have been received and canvassed with a lively and general interest—an interest which is not measured by the extent of our contributions. Ours is still one of the youngest of Nations, with few large accumulations of the fruits of manufacturing activity or artistic skill, and these so generally needed for use that we were not likely to send them three thousand miles away, merely for show. ”

“ Half the way thence to Rome, the road runs along the shore of the Mediterranean, through a naturally fertile and beautiful champaign country, once densely peopled and covered with elegant structures, the homes of intelligence, refinement and luxury. Now there is not a garden, scarcely a tree, and not above ten barns and thirty human habitations in sight throughout the whole twenty-five miles. ”

“ It is well that there should be somewhere an Emporium of the Fine Arts, yet not well that the heart should absorb all the blood and leave the limbs destitute. I think Rome has been grasping with regard to works of Art, and in some instances unwisely so. For instance, in a single private gallery I visited to-day, there were not less than twenty decidedly good pictures by Anibal Caracci—probably twice as many as there are in all the world out of Italy. ”

“ A thrifty, provident, frugal artisan may often seem less wealthy and prosperous than his dashing, squandering, lavish neighbor. France may not display so much plate on the sideboards of her landlords and bankers as England does; but every day adds to her ability to display it. While Great Britain and the United States have undertaken to vie with each other in Free Trade, France holds fast to the principle of Protection, with scarcely a division in her Councils on the subject; and she is consequently amassing in silence the wealth created by other Nations. ”

“ They have great vices I admit, for all testimony affirms it; that they might somewhat abuse Freedom I fear, for the blessed sunshine is painful and perilous to eyes long used to the gloom of the dungeon. But the experience of Freedom must tend to dispel the ignorance and correct the errors of its votaries, while Slavery only leads from bad to worse. If ten centuries of such rule as now prevails here have nowise qualified this people for Self-Government, what rational hope is there that ten more such would do it? If a reform is ever to be effected, it cannot be commenced too soon. ”

“ Of course the Crops are suffering badly. Flax is a great staple of the North of Ireland, and three fourths of it is beaten flat to the earth. Wheat is injured and poor, though not so generally prostrate; Oats look feeble, and as if half drowned; some of these are, and considerable Barley is thrown down; Grass is light, much of it uncut, and much that is cut has lain under the stormy or cloudy skies through the last week and looks badly; only the Potatoes look strong and thrifty, and promise an ample yield. I shall be agreeably disappointed if Ireland realizes a fair average harvest this year. ”

“ The show is certainly a great one, greater in extent, in variety, and in the excellence of a large share of its contents, than the world has hitherto seen. The Crystal Palace, which covers and protects all, is better than any one thing it contains, it is really a fairy wonder, and is a work of inestimable value as a suggestion for future architecture. It is not merely better adapted to its purpose than any other edifice ever yet built could be, but it combines remarkable cheapness with vast and varied utility. ”

“ This is naturally a very poor country, with for the most part a sterile soil—or rather, naked, precipitous rocks, irreclaimably devoid of soil—where, if anywhere, the poor peasantry would be justified in asking charity of the strangers who come to gaze at and enjoy their stupendous but most inhospitable mountains—and yet I have not seen one beggar to a hundred hearty workers, while in fertile, bounteous, sunny Italy, the preponderance was clearly the other way. ”

“ All the agitation, the apprehension, the uncertainty, and the consequent derangement of Industry, through the last year, have grown out of these misdeeds, done and purposed, of the Aristocratic party. In the sacred name of Order, they have fomented discord and anarchy; invoking Peace, they have stirred up hatred and bitterness. Whatever the Social Democracy might have done, had they been in the ascendant or under other supposable circumstances, the fact is that theirs has been actually the cause of Order, of Conservatism, of Tranquillity and the Constitution. ”