Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, no. 25, November 1859 | Page 9

which
Foresti indignantly seized and dashed its scalding contents into the face
of the brutal menial, who thenceforward was more respectful in his
salutations. But it was the moral suffering against which all his wisdom
and courage were invoked to struggle,--the resolute maintenance of
healthful mental activity, without an object or motive underived from
will,--the repression of hopeless, vague, self-tormenting reverie, which
perverts intellect and drains moral energy,--the habitual exercise of
memory, reflection, and fancy, to preserve their functions unimpaired.

Such expedients were of special necessity at Spielberg; for never were
educated men so barbarously deprived of the legitimate resources of
mind and heart; thought and love were left uninvited, unappeased. Sir
Walter Raleigh had the materials, at the Tower, to write a history;
Lafayette, at Olmutz, lived in perpetual expectancy of release; Moore
and Byron, children, flowers, birds, and the Muses cheered Leigh
Hunt's year of durance: but in this bleak fortress, innocent and
magnanimous men beheld the seasons come and go, night succeed day,
and year follow year, with no cognizance of kindred or the world's
doings,--no works of bard or sage,--no element of life,--but a grim, cold,
deadly routine within stone walls,--all tender sympathies, the very
breath of the soul, denied,--all influx of knowledge, the food of the
mind, prohibited, experience a blank, existence a void!
Had we need of evidence that conscience is a normal attribute of
humanity, that the soul is endowed with relations to the Infinite, we
should find it in the self-preservation realized under such circumstances
as these. Only conscious rectitude could arm humanity against the
sense of degradation and deprivation thus surrounding and pressing
upon it for years,--only the belief in a Power above and beyond human
will and perversity,--only, in a word, the recuperative force of moral
individuality and aspiration, could keep intact and uninvaded the
integrity of conscious being. Of course, the method thereof depends on
character; a cheerful heart In one, a buoyant imagination in another,
and the sweet self-oblivion which Faith imparts in a third, sentiment
here and will there, work the same miracle. Foresti belonged to that
class of Italians who combine perspicacity and force of reasoning with
a frank, affectionate, and trustful disposition,--types of the manly
intellect, the childlike heart; incarceration, while it failed to enfeeble
the former, by seclusion from life's game and the world's
encroachments from early youth to middle age, perhaps confirmed the
latter into the candid and loving nature which endeared him to so many
friends in Europe and America. Sterne says, that, if he were in a desert,
he would love some cypress; and Isaac Taylor has observed, that the
devout heart can find in a single blade of grass the evidence of a Divine
Creator. We have all read of Bruce testing his fate, when a captive, by
the gyrations of a spider, of Baron Trenck finding solace in a dungeon
in the companionship of a mouse, and the imaginative prisoner of

Fenestrelle absorbed in vigilant and even affectionate observation of a
little plant,--its germination, slow approach to maturity, and
consummate flowering. But there were alleviating circumstances in the
situation of these captives,--a definite hope of release or a certainty of
life-bondage, either of which alternatives is more favorable to
tranquillity of soul than absolute suspense; they enjoyed tidings from
without or indulgences within. At Spielberg, the _sistema diabolico_,
as it has been justly called, especially at the epoch of Foresti's
incarceration, retained the galling chain on the limbs, cut off the supply
of moral and intellectual vitality, refused appropriate occupation,
baffled hope, eclipsed knowledge, and kept up a vile inquisitorial
process to goad the crushed heart, sap the heroic will, and stupefy or
alienate the mental faculties; dawn ushered in the twilight of a
mausoleum, noon fell dimly on paralyzed manhood, night canopied
aggravating dreams.
"To such sad pitch their gathering griefs were wrought, Life seemed not
life, save when convulsed by thought."
Casual evasions of this fiendish torture, through ingenuity or the
compassion of officials, are among the few animated episodes of their
dreary experiences recorded by the victims. At length the Emperor died
(an event they had surmised from a change in the form of the public
prayer); his son Ferdinand succeeded to the throne, and signalized his
accession by a decree liberating the Italian patriots, but condemning
them to perpetual exile in America. Those long years of such captivity
did not even gain them the privilege of again enjoying civil rights, their
country, and kindred! Protests were vain, appeals disregarded. In
November, 1835, their chains were removed; the same blacksmith who
had welded Foresti's shackles fourteen years before, now severed them,
and wept with joy as they fell! One night they were all summoned to
the director's room, and he, too, announced their enfranchisement with
congratulations; the prison