These lines, written by a young officer of twenty-one, show how far Cavour had already outstripped the Piedmontese provincialism which had the upper hand in the early years of Charles Albert’s reign.  He described himself as vegetating, but he was not idle; sustained mental activity was, in fact, a necessity to him whatever were his outward circumstances.  He read Bentham and Adam Smith, and was excited by the events going on in England, then in the throes of the first Reform Bill.  It was in the fortress of Bard that he gained a grasp of English politics which he never lost, and which hardly another foreigner ever possessed in a like degree.  By chance he became acquainted with an English artist who was engaged in making drawings of the Alpine passes.  This gave him not only the opportunity of speaking and writing English, but also of expressing his private thoughts without reserve, which was impossible with his fellow-countrymen.  Throughout his life he found the same mental relaxation in his intercourse with Englishmen; he felt safe with them.

Cavour was not meant to be a soldier; his tastes did not agree with the routine of military life, and his clear judgment told him that the army is not the natural or correct sphere for a politician—­which he knew himself to be even then, in a country where politics may be said not to have existed.  Acting on these reflections, he resigned his commission, and his father, perhaps to keep him quiet, bought him a small independent property near the ancestral estate at Leri.  The Marquis warned his son that the income would not allow him to keep a valet or a horse; his mother opposed the purchase, as she thought that the young landlord would be tempted to spend more than he had, but to this his father replied that if a man was not a man at twenty-five he would be one never.  The Marquis Michele Benso had recently assumed the post of Vicario of Turin, which his family thought below his dignity, but he apparently took it to oblige the king, with whom the Vicario, who was a sort of Prefect of Police, was in daily contact.  As a result, the estate of Leri, which had been neglected before, was now going actually to ruin.  Cavour, with the approval of his brother, proposed to undertake the whole management of the property, an offer gladly accepted, as the Marquis was well convinced that his younger son had rather too many than too few abilities.  Cavour saw in agriculture the only field at present open to him.  When he left the army he scarcely knew a cabbage from a turnip, for he had not been brought up in the country, but in a few years he familiarised himself with everything connected with the subject, from the most homely detail to wide scientific generalisations.  With knowledge came interest, which, absent at first, grew strong, and lasted all his life.  Little, he said, does the outsider know the charm of planting a field of potatoes or rearing a young heifer!  The practical experience which Cavour gained was precious.  How many cabinet ministers in different parts of the world would lead to bankruptcy a farm, a factory, a warehouse, even a penny tart shop!  As a matter of fact, one Italian minister of finance was legally interdicted, on the application of his family, from managing his own estates.