The other European nations were of no account, having no will of their
own, and being influenced only by the action of the members of the
Pentarchy. Save France, Italy had no friend possessed of the disposition
and the ability to afford her that assistance without which she must
soon have become in name, as she was fast becoming in fact, a mere
collection of Austrian provinces.
We dwell upon those well-known facts because an opinion seems to prevail
that no nation or government shall interfere for the protection of the
weak against the strong, unless it shall be able to show that it is
perfect itself, and that its intentions are of the most unselfish
nature. Peoples are to be delivered from oppression only as the
Israelites were delivered, by the direct and immediate interposition of
Heaven in human affairs; and the delivering agent must be as high-minded
and generous as Moses, who was allowed merely to gaze upon the Promised
Land. Men who thus reason about human action, and the motives of actors
on the great stage of life, must have read history to very little
purpose, and have observed the making of history round about them to no
purpose at all.
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