And as it is certain that there can be no nation without a middle class, I dreaded lest I should be forced to admit that there is no Italian nation.
The middle class appeared to me to thrive no better in the Mediterranean provinces than at Rome.

Half citizen, half clown, the people representing it are plunged in a crass ignorance.

Having just sufficient means to live without working, they lounge away their time in homes comfortless and half-furnished, the very walls of which seem to reek with _ennui_.

Rumours of what is passing in Europe, which might possibly rouse them from their torpor, are stopped at the frontier.

New ideas, which might somewhat fertilize their minds, are intercepted by the Custom House.