The wise man read the first page attentively, the second more cursorily, and only ran his eye over the rest. He had gone through too vast a range of problems political, not to have passed over that venerable _Pons Asinorum_ of Socialism, on which Fouriers and St Simons sit straddling and cry aloud that they have arrived at the last boundary of knowledge! "All this is as old as the hills," quoth Riccabocca irreverently; "but the hills stand still, and this--there it goes!" and the sage pointed to a cloud emitted from his pipe. "Did you ever read Sir David Brewster on Optical Delusions? No! Well, I'll lend it to you. You will find therein a story, of a lady who always saw a black cat on her hearth-rug. The black cat existed only in her fancy, but the hallucination was natural and reasonable--eh--what do you think?" "Why, sir," said Leonard, not catching the Italian's meaning, "I don't exactly see that it was natural and reasonable." "Foolish boy, yes! because black cats are things possible and known. But who ever saw upon earth a community of men such as sit on the hearth-rugs of Messrs Owen and Fourier? If the lady's hallucination was not reasonable, what is his, who believes in such visions as these?" Leonard bit his lip. "My dear boy," cried Riccabocca kindly, "the only thing sure and tangible to which these writers would lead you, lies at the first step, and that is what is commonly called a Revolution. Now, I know what that is. I have gone, not indeed through a revolution, but an attempt at one." Leonard raised his eyes towards his master with a look of profound respect, and great curiosity. "Yes," added Riccabocca, and the face on which the boy gazed exchanged its usual grotesque and sardonic expression for one animated, noble, and heroic. "Yes, not a revolution for chimeras, but for that cause which the coldest allow to be good, and which, when successful, all time approves as divine--the redemption of our native soil from the rule of the foreigner! I have shared in such an attempt. And," continued the Italian mournfully, "recalling now all the evil passions it arouses, all the ties it dissolves, all the blood that it commands to flow, all the healthful industry it arrests, all the madmen that it arms, all the victims that it dupes, I question whether one man really honest, pure, and humane, who has once gone through such an ordeal, would ever hazard it again, unless he was assured that the victory was certain--ay, and the object for which he fights not to be wrested from his hands amidst the uproar of the elements that the battle has released." The Italian paused, shaded his brow with his hand, and remained long silent. Then, gradually resuming his ordinary tone, he continued--