Herein Signer Fogazzaro certainly discloses his
profound knowledge of the Italian heart--of that heart from which in its
early medieval vigour sprang the Roman religion, with its message
of renunciation. Even the Renaissance and the subsequent period of
scepticism have not blotted out those tendencies that date back more
than a thousand years: so that today, if an Italian is engulfed in a
passion of self-sacrifice, he naturally thinks first of asceticism as
the method. Among Northern races a similar religious experience does
not suggest hair shirts and debilitating pious orgies (except among
Puseyites and similar survivals from a different epoch); it suggests
active work, like that of General Booth of the Salvation Army.
No one can gainsay, however, the superb artistic effects which Signor
Fogazzaro attains through his Saint's varied experiences. He causes to
pass before you all classes of society,--from the poorest peasant of the
Subiaco hills, to duchesses and the Pope himself,--some incredulous,
some mocking, some devout, some hesitating, some spell-bound, in the
presence of a holy man.
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