by a man whom many esteem even though they differ with him—Benedetto Croce—but the common throng of readers will not permit comparisons between those who have and those who have not received all the licenses, passports, and visés of academic, governmental, and journalistic glorification. Without diplomas and brevets, the greatest man is but an outcast—and intermarriages are prohibited as severely as in royal Rome. Alfredo Oriani was not the laureate of any creed, of any party, of any school. Even since his death—though death at times wins pardon for unconventionality in greatness—he has not succeeded in breaking down the invisible wall that shut from him the air and the light of recognition. “Life is a prison without a window,” says an English writer. Such it was indeed for Oriani.
But I, being free from legitimist considerations, can and will compare him to the great—not that I may play the Plutarch, nor that I may exalt one who needs no exaltation, but as a matter of didactic necessity. Despite all efforts, Oriani is still unknown; and the only way of giving an impression of him to those who do not know him is to bring him into relation with those who are well known—even though these latter appear far greater than Oriani, even though Oriani be made to seem a casual intruder.
