The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1915-07-13
LAND IS
THREATENED AGAIN
ITALY'S "FATAL GIFT OF BEAU
TY,' MAY LEAD TO DE-
VISITATION.

washington, ID. u, july Lev mere
romance and industry, beauty and
squalor, the greatest in art and veriest
the sub-Alpine lands of Italy, invasion
is threatened again, and such of the
rich heritage of civilization as has
weathered the many storms that have
gathered and broken over Northern
Italy, is again in danger of wars ruth
less destruction. Some of Italys rich
est treasures and memories are con-
tanned in her northern cities, and here,
too, lies the weight of industrial, COM
mercial and political Italy. An init
mate description of these provinces
abutting upon the latest battlefront
tier has been prepared for the Nation
al Geographic Society by Florence
Craig Albrecht, whose understanding
of Italy is that of longtime, sympa-
thetic friend. She writes:
"The fatal gift of beauty, which
is Italys dover, is that of each of her
children. as their history is hers. The
unified Italy, which our generation
has known, is no older than us. The
peninsula bounded, roughly speaking,
by the Alps, the Mediterranean, the
Adriatic and the Tyrrhenean Sea, has
been in turn both cOnqueror and con-
quered: ruler of half the world, vassal
of petty kings. Each of its ancient
cities presents a shield so denied with
scars, so Overwritten with words and
deeds, that no casual tourist may de-
cipher it. It's loneliness, however, he
may none-the-less enjoy.
eff Italys pages in history are
drenched in blood, they are gilded
and glowing also with music and
poetry and song, with valor and love
and art If she were not a nation, she
was the home of many; bit of earth
so lovely that the cOolest-headed
geographer must admire; place that
gave birth not only to wonderous
fruits and flowers, but to marvellous
children of men.
"What our debt to her may be-in
architecture, in sculpture, in painting,
in music, in poetry, in all that raises
life from dull necessitous routine
none may measure. Her political past
we may criticize; her artistic, never.
.4E,rreora Genoa Genoa nerthrWard to. Payia
is but little way, but that way is
over the Ligurian Alps, all green and
gray with vineyards and olives, and
noisy with swift little rushing rivers
and mill-wheels clatking around-a
lovely way that eventually brings us
into the plain Of Lombardy. And here
there are many rich cities and much
of art and of history, for in this great
fertile plain between huge mountain
chains armies have ever gathered,
looking up toward the Alps, to great
flSCOi lCO OfSI IIIC DSyOUu them,
or, themselves pagan, rejoicing in the
luxuriance spread before them, as
they faced joyously the Apennines and
Rome.
"Northward the snow peaks of the
Alps form a natural barrier, it would
seem, to the nation .tenanting this Pc
but soldiers have little SYM
pathy with geographical boundaries
save for strtegic purposes, and
none. The western chain
of Alps bends southwark to the Medi-
terranean, ending presumably in the
great headland between Nice and Mo-
naco. Across this physical boundary
line Italy's western limits have been
thrust back and forth through CEN
turtles, reaching once far beyond Nice,
at present not quite touching Men