If I do come in this way, all I can promise is to plague other people
as little as possible. My own plans and desires will be postponed to
another world.
Do not feel anxious about me. Some higher power leads me through
strange, dark, thorny paths, broken at times by glades opening down
into prospects of sunny beauty, into which I am not permitted to
enter. If God disposes for us, it is not for nothing. This I can say,
my heart is in some respects better, it is kinder and more humble.
Also, my mental acquisitions have certainly been great, however
inadequate to my desires.
TO M.S.
_Rome, Nov._ 23, 1848.--Mazzini has stood alone in Italy, on a sunny
height, far above the stature of other men. He has fought a great
fight against folly, compromise, and treason; steadfast in his
convictions, and of almost miraculous energy to sustain them, is he.
He has foes; and at this moment, while he heads the insurrection in
the Valtellina, the Roman people murmur his name, and long to call him
here.
How often rings in my ear the consolatory word of Koerner, after many
struggles, many undeceptions, "Though the million suffer shipwreck,
yet noble hearts survive!"
I grieve to say, the good-natured Pio has shown himself utterly
derelict, alike without resolution to abide by the good or the ill.
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