ITALIAN PATRIOTISM. [To THE EDITOR OF THE"SPECTATOR."] SIR,—The letter from
an Englishwoman in Italy in your last, issue is interesting, and may represent what the state of mind is in some of the country districts ; but let me place before your readers a letter from a young Italian engineering student in Turin received on December 18th, which shows another side, and perhaps even more characteristio of that fascinating people, so responsive, so variable, so able to sink to the depths and mount to the stars.—I am, Sir, &o.,
WM. H. Mums..
"Again we have gained a victory. Tripoli is delivered and at last ours ! For long years we have been struggling for it and at last we have succeeded. It is beautiful, after always having been put back, that we also now have something worth possessing; that we, too, are rich and powerful ; that we have a King and Minister of whom we need not be ashamed. When the declaration of
war came, on September 30th, we all felt, from the boy of seven to the old man of seventy, that none would stand back if his turn to fight came ; and now after the whole nation has been trembling and Italy has been governed by one thought, now we feel the joy of the victory like one soul. All this just fifty years after Italy has become what it is now, and no bank has fallen and no prices are raised ; everything is as it was before, but the nation filled with a trembling pride, and even those who formerly were ashamed of their nationality now say with up- lifted head: I am an Italian !' Oh how I have felt in these days I love my little sunny fatherland; how we all feel that we will stand together and love each other. You ought to have seen how the old Garibaldi soldiers cried when the soldiers left for Tripoli in their red tunics, decorated with their medals : one of them died of emotion. One soldier said to his girl : Give me a kiss here in public and I'll kill a Turk for you!' And she gave him about ten and said: ' Kill one for each!' And the whole country thinks in the same way."
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