His views concerning society, government, and the future of his country, were entirely without balance, and betrayed an amazing ignorance of the laws which, direct the destinies of mankind.

He suffered in a remarkable degree from that mental disease which afflicts Italians--the worship of the fetish--of words which mean little, and are supposed to mean much, of names in history which have been exalted by the rhetoric of demagogues from the obscurity to which they had been wisely consigned by the judgment of scholars.

He was alternately weak and despotic, cunning about small things which concerned his own fortunes, and amazingly foolish about the set of ideas which he loosely defined as politics.
Lucia's nature illustrated another phase of the Italian character, and one which, if it is less remarkable, is much more agreeable.

She possessed the character which looks at everything from the point of view of daily life.

Without imagination, she regarded only the practical side of existence.