France
was resting and cooling from the throes and fires of revolution, and
growing the vine over its old lava courses. The citizen-King and his
family were setting an example of domestic affection and union, of
morality, thrift, and forehandedness--diligently making hay while the
fickle sun of French loyalty was shining. Italy was lying deathly quiet
under the mailed foot of Austria, and under the paternal foot of the old
Pope, shod with a velvet slipper, cross-embroidered, but leaden-soled;
Garibaldi was fighting for liberty in "the golden South Americas";
Mazzini was yet dreaming of liberty--so was Kossuth. Russia was quietly
gathering herself up for new leaps of conquest tinder her most imperial,
inflexible autocrat--the inscrutable, unsmiling Nicholas.
In England and America it was, though a peaceful, a stirring and an
eventful time. English manufacturers, not content with leveling mountains
of American cotton bales, converting them into textile fabrics and
clothing the world therewith, were reaching deep and deeper into the
bowels of the earth, and pulling up sterner stuff to spin into gigantic
threads with which to lace together all the provinces and cities of the
realm. That captive monster, Steam, though in the early days of its
servitude, was working well in harness, while in America Morse was after
the lightning, lassoing it with his galvanic wires.
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