 CHAPTER X of Margaret Fuller, Marquesa Ossolly, by Julia Ward Howe. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. OCEAN VOYEGE Arrival at Liverpool. The late country. Wordsworth. Miss Martinoe. Edinburgh. Dick Quincy. Mary Queen of Scots. Night on Ben Lomond. James Martinoe. William J. Fox. London. Joanna Bailey. Matsini. Thomas Carlisle. Margaret's impressions of him. His estimate of her. The time had now come when Margaret's darling wish was to be fulfilled. An opportunity of going abroad offered itself under circumstances which she felt able to accept. On the 1st of August, 1846, she sailed for Europe in the Cambria, then the favourite steamer of the Cunard Line, with Captain Judkins, the most popular and best known of the company's commanders. Her travelling companions were Mr. and Mrs. Marcus Spring of Eaglewood, New Jersey. She anticipated much from this journey. Delight, instruction, and the bodily view of a whole world of beauties which she knew as yet only ideally. Beyond, and unguessed, lay the mysteries of fate, from whose depth she was never to emerge in her earthly form. Margaret already possessed the spirit of all that is most valuable in European culture. She knew the writers of the Old World by study, its brave souls by sympathy, its works of art, more imperfectly, through copies and engravings. The Europe which she carried in her mind was not that which the superficial observer sees with careless eyes, nor could it all together correspond with that which she, in her careful and thoughtful travel, would discern. But the possession of the European mind was a key destined to unlock, for her, the true significance of European society. The voyage was propitious. Arriving in England, Margaret visited the Mechanics Institute in Liverpool, and found the dial quoted in an address recently given by its director. Sentences from the writings of Charles Sumner and Elihu Burrett adorned the pages of Bradshaw's railway guide, and she was soon called upon to note the wide discrepancy between the views of enlightened Englishmen and the selfish policy of their government, corresponding to the more vulgar passions and ambitions of the people at large. Passing into the late country, she visited Wordsworth at Ambleside, and found no Apollo flaming with youthful glory, but instead a reverend old man clothed in black and walking with cautious step along the level-garden path. The aged poet, then numbering seventy-six years, but of a florid, fair old age, showed the visitors his household portraits, his hollyhocks, and his fuchsias. His secluded mode of life, Margaret learned, had so separated him from the living issues of the time that the needs of the popular heart touched him but remotely. She found him, however, less intolerant than she had feared concerning the repeal of the Corn Laws, a measure upon which public opinion was, at the time, strongly divided. In this neighborhood Margaret again saw Miss Martinot at a new home presented to her by the gratitude of England for her course of energetic and benevolent effort. Dean Millman, historian and dramatist, was here introduced to Margaret, who describes him as a specimen of the polished scholarly man of the world. Margaret now visited various places of interest in Scotland, and in Edinburgh saw Dr. Andrew Combe, Dr. Chalmers, and De Quincey. Dr. Combe, an eminent authority in various departments of medicine and physiology, was a younger brother of George Combe, the distinguished phrenologist. He had much to say about his tribulations with the American publishers, who had pirated one of his works, but who refused to print an amended edition of it, on the ground that the book sold well enough as it was. Margaret describes Dr. Chalmers as half shepherd, half orator, florid, portly, yet of an intellectually luminous appearance. De Quincey was of the same age as Wordsworth. Margaret finds his thoughts and knowledge of a character somewhat superseded by the progress of the age. She found him, not the less, an admirable narrator, not rapid, but gliding along like a rivulet through a green meadow, giving and taking a thousand little beauties, not required to give his story due relief, but each in itself a separate boon. She admires, too, his urbanity, so opposed to the rapid, slang, Vivian grayish style current in the literary conversation of the day. Among Margaret's meditations in Scotland was one which she records as, the bootless, best thoughts I had, while looking at the dull bloodstain and blocked up secret stare of Holyrood, at the ruins of Loch Leven Castle, and afterwards at Abbotsford, where the picture of Queen Mary's head, as it lay on the pillow when severed from the block, hung opposite to a fine caricature of Queen Elizabeth, dancing high and disposedly. We give here a part of this meditation. Surely, in all the stern pages of life's account book, there is none on which a more terrible price is exacted for every precious endowment. Her rank and reign only made her powerless to do good, and exposed her to danger. Her talents only served to irritate her foes and disappoint her friends. This most charming of women was the destruction of her lovers. Mary three times she had never any happiness as a wife, but in both the connections of her choice found that she had either never possessed, or could not retain, even for a few weeks, the love of the men she had chosen. A mother twice, and of a son and daughter, both the children were brought forth in loneliness and sorrow, and separated from her early. Her son educated to hate her. Her daughter at once emured in a convent. At the eighteen years of her imprisonment, and the fact that this foolish, prodigal world, when there was in it one woman, fitted by her grace and loveliness to charm all eyes, and enliven all fancies, suffered her to be shut up, to water with her tears her dull embroidery during the full rose blossom of her life. And you will hardly get beyond this story for a tragedy, not noble, but pallid and forlorn. From Edinburgh, Margaret and her party made an excursion into the Highlands. The stagecoach was not yet displaced by the locomotive, and Margaret enjoyed, from the top, the varying aspect of that picturesque region. Perth, Loc Levin, and Loc Catrine were visited, and Roe Ardenin, the place from which the ascent of Ben-Loman is usually made by travellers. Margaret attempted this feat with but one companion, and without a guide, the people at the inn not having warned her of any danger in so doing. The ascent she found delightful. So magnificent was the prospect that, in remembering it, she said, Had that been, as afterwards seemed likely, the last act of my life, there could not have been a finer decoration painted on the curtain which was to drop upon it. The proverbial facilist descensus did not hear old good, and the revocare gradum nearly cost Margaret her life. Beginning to descend at four in the afternoon the indistinct path was soon lost. Margaret's companion left her for a moment in search of it, and could not find her. Soon he called to me that he had found it, the path, and I followed in the direction where he seemed to be. But I mistook, overshot it, and saw him no more. In about ten minutes I became alarmed, and called him many times. It seems he on his side did the same, but the brow of some hill was between us, and we neither saw nor heard one another. Margaret now made many attempts to extricate herself from her dangerous situation, and at last attained a point from which she could see the lake and the inn from which she had started in the morning. But the mountain paths were crossed by water-courses and hemmed in by bogs. After much climbing up and down Margaret, already wet, very weary, and thinly clad, saw that she must pass the night on the mountain. The spot at which the light foresook her was of so precipitous a character as to leave her in the dark no liberty of movement. Yet she did keep in motion of some sort through the whole of that weary night. And this she supposes saved her life. The stars kept her company for two hours when the mist fell and hid them. The moon rose late and was but dimly discernible. At length morning came, and Margaret, starting homeward once more, came upon a company of shepherds who carried her exhausted to the inn, where her distressed friends were waiting for news of her. Such was the extent of the mountain that a party of twenty men with dogs sent in search of the missing one were not heard by her, and did not hear her voice, which she raised from time to time, hoping to call someone to her rescue. The strength of Margaret's much abused constitution was made evident by her speedy recovery from the effects of this severe exposure. A fit vigil, this, for one who was about to witness the scenes of 1848. She speaks of the experience as, Sublime indeed, a never-to-be-forgotten presentation of stern, serene realities. I had had my grand solitude, my oceanic visions, and the pleasure of sustaining myself. After visiting Glasgow and Stirling, Margaret and her friends returned to England by Abbotsford and Melrose. In Birmingham, Margaret heard two discourses from George Dawson, then considered a young man of much promise. In Liverpool she had already heard James Martino, and in London she listened to William Fox. She compares these men with William Henry Channing and Theodore Parker. None of them compare in the symmetrical arrangement of extemporary discourse or in the pure eloquence and communication of spiritual beauty with Channing, nor in fullness and sustained flow with Parker. Margaret's estimate of Martino is interesting. Mr. Martino looks like the over-intellectual, the partially developed man, and his speech confirms this impression. He is sometimes conservative, sometimes reformer, not in the sense of eclecticism, but because his powers and views do not find a true harmony. On the conservative side he is scholarly, acute. On the other, pathetic, pictorial, generous. He is no prophet and no sage, yet a man full of fine affections and thoughts, always suggestive, sometimes satisfactory. Mr. Fox appears to her the reverse of all this. He is homogeneous in his materials and harmonious in the results he produces. He has great persuasive power. It is the persuasive power of a mind warmly engaged in seeking truth for itself. What a leap did our Margaret now make from Puritanic New England, round-head and Cromwellian in its character, into the very heart of Old England. Into that London which, in those days, and for long years after, might have been called the metropolis of the world. Wonders of many sorts the province in Brick still contains. Still does it most astonish those who bring to it the most knowledge. But the social wonders which it then could boast have passed away, leaving no equals to take their place. Charles Dickens was then in full bloom, thackery and full bud. Sidney Smith exercised his keen, discreet wit. Kenyon not only wrote about pink champagne, but dispensed it with many other good things. Rogers entertained with exquisite taste and showed his art treasures without ostentation. Tom Moore, like a veteran canary, chirped but would not sing. Lord Brome and the Iron Duke were seen in the House of Lords. Carlile growled and imbibed strong tea at Chelsea. The Queen was in the favour of her youth, with her handsome husband always at her side. The Duchess of Sutherland, a beautiful woman with lovely daughters, kept her state at Stafford House. Lord Houghton was known as Moncton Milnes. The honourable Mrs. Norton wore her dark hair folded upon her classic head, beneath a circlet of diamonds. A first season in London was then a bewilderment of brilliancy in reputations, beauties and entertainments. Margaret did not encounter the season, but hoped to do so at a later day. For the moment she consoled herself thus. I am glad I did not at first see all that pomp and parade of wealth and luxury in contrast with the misery, squalid, agonising, ruffianly, which stares one in the face in every street of London, and hoots at the gates of her palaces a note more ominous than ever was that of Al or Raven, in the portentous times when empires and races have crumbled and fallen from inward decay. Margaret expresses the hope that the social revolution, which to her seemed imminent in England, may be a peaceful one, which shall destroy nothing except the shocking inhumanity of exclusiveness. She speaks with appreciation of the National and Dulwich Galleries, the British Museum, the Zoological Gardens. Among the various establishments of benevolence and reform she especially mentions a school for poor Italian boys, with which Mazzini had much to do. This illustrious man was already in exile in London, as was the German poet Freilagrath. Margaret was an admirer of Joanna Bailey and considered her and the French Madame Roulande as the best specimens hitherto offered of women of a Roman strength and singleness of mind, adorned by the various culture and capable of the various action open to them by the progress of the Christian idea. She thus chronicles her visit to Miss Bailey. We found her in her little calm retreat at Hampstead, surrounded by marks of love and reverence from distinguished and excellent friends. Near her was the sister, older than herself, yet still sprightly and full of active kindness, whose character she has, in one of her last poems, indicated with such a happy mixture of sagacity, humor and tender pathos and with so absolute a truth of outline. Although no autograph hunter, I asked for theirs, and when the elder gave hers as sister to Joanna Bailey, it drew a tear from my eye, a good tear, a genuine pearl fit homage to that fairest product of the soul of man, humble, disinterested tenderness. Margaret also visited Miss Berry, the friend of Horace Walpole, long a celebrity and at that time more than eighty years old. In spite of this, Margaret found her still characterized by the charm, careless nature or refined art, which had made her a social power once and always. But of all the notable personages who might have been seen in the London of that time, no one probably interested Margaret so much as did Thomas Carlisle. Her introduction to him was for Mr. Emerson, his friend and correspondent, and it was such as to open to her more than once the doors of the retired and reserved house in which neither time nor money was lavished upon the entertainment of strangers. Mr. Carlisle's impressions of Margaret have now been given to the world in the published correspondence of Carlisle and Emerson. She had long before drawn her portrait of him in one of her letters descriptive of London and its worthies. The candid criticism of both is full of interest and may here be contrasted. Margaret says, I approached him with more reverence after a little experience of England and Scotland had taught me to appreciate the strength and height of that wall of shams and conventions which he, more than any other man, or thousand men, indeed he almost alone has begun to throw down. He has torn off the veils from hideous facts, he has burnt away foolish illusions, he has touched the rocks and they have given forth musical answer. Little more was wanting to begin to construct the city, but that little was wanting, and the work of construction is left to those that come after him. Nay, all attempts of the kind he is the readiness to deride, fearing new shams worse than the old, unable to trust the general action of a thought, and finding no heroic man, no natural king, to represent it and challenge his confidence. How significant is this phrase, unable to trust the general action of a thought? This saving faith in the power of just thought, Carlisle the thinker, had not. With a reverence then, not blind but discriminating, Margaret approached this luminous mind and saw and heard its possessor, thus. Accustomed to the infinite wit and exuberant richness of his writings, his talk is still an amazement and a splendor scarcely to be faced with steady eyes. He does not converse, only harangues. It is the usual misfortune of such marked men that they cannot allow other minds room to breathe and show themselves in their atmosphere, and thus miss the refreshment and instruction which the greatest never cease to need from the experience of the humblest. Carlisle indeed is arrogant and overbearing, but in his arrogance there is no littleness or self-love. It is the heroic arrogance of some old Scandinavian conqueror. It is his nature in the untamable impulse that is given in power to crush the dragons. For the higher kinds of poetry he has no sense, and his talk on that subject is delightfully and gorgeously absurd. He puts out his chin sometimes till it looks like the beak of a bird, and his eyes flash bright instinctive meanings like Jove's bird. Yet he is not calm and grand enough for the eagle. He is more like the falcon, and yet not of gentle blood enough for that either. I cannot speak more nor wiseler of him now, nor needs it. His works are true to blame and praise him. The sick-freed of England, great and powerful, if not quite invulnerable, and of a might rather to destroy evil than to legislate for good. In a letter to Mr. Emerson, Margaret gives some account of her visits at the Carlisle mansion. The second of these was on the occasion of a dinner-party, at which she met a witty, French, flippant sort of a man, author of a history of philosophy, and now writing a life of Goethe, presumably George Luce. Margaret acknowledges that he told stories admirably, and that his occasional interruptions of Carlisle's persistent monologue were welcome. Of this her summary is too interesting to be omitted here. For a couple of hours he was talking about poetry, and the whole harangue was one eloquent proclamation of the defects in his own mind. Tennyson wrote in verse because the school-masters had taught him that it was great to do so, and had thus, unfortunately, been turned from the true path for a man. Murn's had, in like manner, been turned from his vocation. Shakespeare had not had the good sense to see that it would have been better to write straight on in prose, and such nonsense which, though amusing enough at first, he ran to death after a while. The latter part of the evening, however, he paid us for this by a series of sketches, in his finest style of railing and railery, of modern French literature. All were depreciating except that of Berragé. Of him he spoke with perfect justice, because with hearty sympathy. The retirement of the ladies to the drawing-room afforded Margaret an opportunity which she had not yet enjoyed. I had afterwards some talk with Mrs. Carlisle, whom hitherto I had only seen, for who can speak while her husband is there? I like her very much. She is full of grace, sweetness, and talent. Her eyes are sad and charming. Margaret saw the Carlisles only once more. They came to pass an evening with us. Unluckily Mazzini was with us, whose society, when he was there alone, I enjoyed more than any. He is a beauteous and pure music. Also he is a dear friend of Mrs. Carlisle. But his being there gave the conversation a turn to progress and ideal subjects, and Carlisle was fluent in invectives on all our rose-water imbecilities. We all felt distant from him, and Mazzini, after some vain efforts to remonstrate, became very sad. Mrs. Carlisle said to me, These are but opinions to Carlisle, but to Mazzini, who has given his all and helped bring his friends to the scaffold in pursuit of such subjects, it is a matter of life and death. Clearly Carlisle had not, in Margaret's estimation, the true gospel. She would not bow to the Titanic forces, whether met within the romances of Sond or in his force theory. And so, bidding him farewell with great admiration, she passes on, as she says, More lowly, more willing to be imperfect, since fate permits such noble creatures, after all, to be only this or that. Carlisle is only a lion. Carlisle, on his side, writes of her to Mr. Emerson, Margaret is an excellent soul, in real regard with both of us here. Since she went, I have been reading some of her papers in a new book we have got, greatly superior to all I knew before. In fact, the undeniable utterances, now first undeniable to me, are truly heroic mind, altogether unique, so far as I know, among the writing women of this generation. Rare enough, too, God knows, among the writing men. She is very narrow sometimes, but she is truly high. Honor to Margaret, and more and more good speed to her. At a later day he sums up his impressions of her in this wise. Such a predetermination to eat this big universe as her oyster or her egg, and to be absolute empress of all height and glory in it, that her heart could conceive, I have not before seen in any human soul. Her mountain me indeed, but her courage, too, is high and clear. Her chivalrous nobleness a toot a prove. Margaret's high estimate of Matsini will be justified by those who knew him or knew of him. Matsini, one of these noble refugees, is not only one of the heroic, the courageous, and the faithful. Italy boasts many such, but he is also one of the wise. One of those who, disappointed in the outward results of their undertakings, can yet bait no jot of heart and hope, but must steer right onward. For it was no superficial enthusiasm, no impatient energies that impelled him, but an understanding of what must be the designs of heaven with regard to man, since God is love, is justice. He is one of those beings who, measuring all things by the ideal standard, have yet no time to mourn over failure or imperfection. There is too much to be done to obviate it. She finds in his papers, published in the People's Journal, the purity of impulse, largeness, and steadiness of view, and fineness of discrimination, which must belong to a legislator for a Christian commonwealth. Much as Margaret admired the noble sentiments expressed in Matsini's writings, she admired still more the love and wisdom which led the eminent Patriot to found, with others, the school for poor Italian boys already spoken of. More Christ-like did she deem this labor than ought that he could have said or sung. As among the fishermen and poor people of Judea were picked up those who have become to modern Europe eleven that leavens the whole mass, so may these poor Italian boys yet become more efficacious as missionaries to their people than would an orphic poet at this period. At the distribution of prizes to the school, in which Matsini and Mariotti took part, some of the Polish exiles also being present, she seemed to see a planting of the kingdom of heaven. Margaret saw a good deal of James Garth Wilkinson, who later became prominent as the author of the work entitled, The Human Body in its Relation to the Constitution of Man. She found in him a sane, strong, and well-exercised mind, but in the last degree unpoetical in its structure. Dr. Wilkinson published, years after this time, a volume of verses which amply sustains this judgment. Browning, she writes, has just married Miss Barrett and gone to Italy. I may meet them there. I mean for a much longer visit at some future time, and bewildered as she says, both by the treasures which she had found and those which she had not had opportunity to explore, Margaret left London for its social and aesthetic antithesis. End of Chapter 10 Chapter 11 of Margaret Fuller, Marqueso Ossolli, by Julia Ward Howe This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Alexandra Vatmar Schools and Reformatories Journey to Marseille Genoa Leghorn Naples Rome If the aspect of London society has changed greatly since Margaret's visit there in 1846, the Paris which she saw that winter may be said to exist no longer so completely as its physiognomy transformed by the events of the last thirty-seven years. Like London, Paris had then some gems of the first water to which nothing in the present day corresponds. Rachelle was then queen of its tragic stage, Georges Sainte Supreme in its literary domain. de Balzac, Eugène Soue, Dumas Perre, and Berangers then lived and moved among admiring friends. Victor Hugo was in early Middle Age. Guiseaux was in his full prestige, literary and administrative. Liszt and Chopin held the opposite poles of the musical world and wielded, the one its most intense, the other its broadest power. The civilized world then looked to Paris for the precious traditions of good taste and the city deserved this deference as it does not now. The sense of security which then prevailed in the French capital was indeed illusory. The stable basis of things was already undermined by the dangerous action of theories and of thinkers. Louis-Philippe was unconsciously nearing the abrupt close of his reign. A new chaos was imminent and went out of which was to come first a heroic uprising and then a despotism so monstrous and mischievous as to fordume itself, a caricature of military empire which for a time cheated Europe and in the end died of the emptiness of its own corruption. Into this Paris Margaret came, not unannounced. Her essay on American literature which had recently appeared in her volume entitled Papers on Literature and Art had already been translated into French and printed in the Revue Indépendant. The same periodical soon after published a notice of woman in the nineteenth century. Margaret enjoyed the comfortable aspect of the apartment which she occupied with her travelling companions at Hotel Rougement Boulevard Poissonnière. She mentions the clock, mirror, curtain, bed, and small wood fire which were then, and are today, so costly to the transient occupant. Though at first not familiar with the sound of the French language she soon had some pleasant acquaintances and was not long in finding her way to the literary and social eminences who were prepared to receive her as their peer. First among these she mentions Georges Sond to whom she wrote a letter calling afterwards at her house. Her name was not rightly reported by the peasant woman who opened the door, and Margaret, waiting for admittance, heard at first the discouraging words. Madame says she does not know you. She stopped to send a message regarding the letter she had written and as she spoke Madame Sond opened the door and stood looking at her for a moment. Our eyes met. I shall never forget her look at that moment. The doorway made a frame for her figure. She is large but well-formed. She was dressed in a robe of dark violet silk with a black mantel on her shoulders, her beautiful hair dressed with the greatest taste, her whole appearance and attitude in its simple and ladylike dignity presenting an almost ludicrous contrast to the vulgar caricature idea of Georges Sond. Her face is of very little like the portrait's but much finer. The upper part of the forehead and eyes are beautiful, the lower strong and masculine, expressive of a hearty temperament and strong passions, but not in the least coarse, the complexion olive and the air of the whole head Spanish. This striking apparition was further commended in Margaret's eyes by the expression of goodness, nobleness and power that characterized the countenance of the great French woman. Madame Sond said, c'est vous, and offered her hand to Margaret, who taking it answered, il me fait de bien de vous voir. It does me good to see you. They went into the study. Madame Sond spoke of Margaret's letter as charmant and the two ladies then talked on for hours as if they had always known each other. Madame Sond had at that moment a work in the press and was hurried for copy and beset by friends and visitors. She kept all these at a distance, saying to Margaret, it is better to throw things aside and seize the present moment. Margaret gives this resume of the interview. We did not talk at all of personal or private matters. I saw, as one sees in her writings, the want of an independent interior life, but I did not feel it as a fault. I hardly enjoyed the sense of so rich, so prolific, so ardent a genius. I liked the woman in her, too, very much. I never liked a woman better. To complete the portrait, Margaret mentions the cigarette, which her new friend did not relinquish during the interview. The impression received as to character did not materially differ from that already made by her writings. In seeing her, Margaret was not led to believe that all her mistakes were chargeable upon the unsettled condition of modern society, yet she felt not the less convinced of the generosity and nobleness of her nature. There may have been something of the baccantie in her life, says Margaret, some reverting to the wild ecstasies of heathen nature-worship, but she was never coarse, never gross. Margaret saw Madame Sainte a second time, surrounded by her friends, and with her daughter, who was then on the eve of her marriage with the sculptor Claise Angers. In this entourage she had, the position of an intellectual woman and good friend, the same as my own, says Margaret, in the circle of my acquaintance has distinguished from my intimates. Beneath the same roof Margaret found Chopin, always ill, and as frail as a snow-drop, but an exquisite genius. He played to me, and I liked his talking scarcely less. The Polish poet Mieszkiewicz said to her, Chopin gives us the aerial view of the universe. Margaret had done her best, while in London, to see what the English stage had to offer. The result had greatly disappointed her. In France she found the theatre living, and found also a public which would not have tolerated one touch of that stage-strut and vulgar bombast of tone which the English actor fancies indispensable to scenic illusion. In Paris she says that she saw, for the first time, something represented in a style uniformly good. Besides this general excellence, which is still aimed at in the best theatres of the continent, the Parisian stage had then a star of the first magnitude, whose splendour was without an equal, and whose setting brought no successor. In the supreme domain of tragic art, Rachelle then reigned, an undisputed queen. Like Georges Sond, her brilliant front was obscured by the cloud of doubt which rested upon her private character, a matter of which even the most dissolute age will take note after its fashion. And yet the charmed barrier of the foot-light surrounded her with a flame of mystery. Whatever was known or surmised of her elsewhere, within those limits she appeared as the living impersonation of beauty, grace, and power. For Rachelle had at this time no public sorrow. How it might fair with her and her lovers little concerned the crowds who gathered nightly, drawn by the lightnings of her eye, the melodious thunder of her voice. Ten years later a new favourite, her rival but not her equal, came to win the heart of Paris from her. Then Rachelle, grieved and angry, knew the vanity of all human dependence. She crossed the ocean and gave the new world a new delight. But in spite of its laurels and applause she sickened. Margaret had said she could not live long, and fled far, far eastward to hear in ancient Egypt the death-salms of her people. With a smile, the last change of that expressive countenance, its lovely light expired. Of the woman, Margaret says nothing. Of the artist she says that she found her worthy of grace and fit to be made immortal in its marble. She did not, it is true, find in her the most tender pathos, nor yet the sublime of sweetness. Her range, even in high tragedy, is limited. Her noblest aspect is when sometimes she expresses truth in some severe shape, and rises, simple and austere, above the mixed elements around her. Had Margaret seen her in Léhoras? One would think so. On the dark side she is very great in hatred and revenge. I admired her more in Phaedra than in any other part in which I saw her. The guilty love inspired by the hatred of a goddess was expressed with a force and terrible naturalness that almost suffocated the beholder. Margaret had heard much about the power which Rochelle could throw into a single look, and speaks of it as indeed magnificent. Yet she admired most in her the grandeur, truth, and depth of her conception of each part, and the sustained purity with which she represented it. In seeing other notabilities Margaret was indeed fortunate. She went one day to call upon La Manet, to whom she brought a letter of introduction. To her disappointment she found him not alone. But the citizen-looking, vivacious, elderly man, whom she was at first sorry to see with him, turned out to be the poet Barangé, and Margaret says that she was very happy in that little study, in the presence of these two men whose influence has been so great, so real. It was indeed a very white stone that hit two such birds at one throw. Margaret heard a lecture from Aragó and was not disappointed in him. Clear, rapid, full, and equal was this discourse, and worthy of the master's celebrity. The Chamber of Deputies was, in those days, much occupied with the Spanish marriage, as it was called. This was the intended betrothal of the Queen of Spain's sister to the Duc de Montpensier, youngest son of the then reigning King of the French, Louis-Philippe. Guiseaux and Thiers were both heard on this matter, but Margaret only, Monsieur Berrier, then considered the most eloquent speaker of the house. His oratory appeared to her, indeed very good, not logical, but plausible, with occasional bursts of flame and showers of sparks. While admiring him, Margaret thinks that her own country possesses public speakers of more force and of equal polish. At a presentation and ball at the Tuileries, Margaret was much struck with the elegance and grace of the Parisian ladies of high society. The Queen made the Circuit of State with the youthful Duchess, the cause of so much disturbance, hanging on her arm. Margaret found here some of her own countrywomen, conspicuous for their beauty. The uniforms and decorations of the gentlemen contrasted favorably in her view with the somber black-coated masses of men seen in circles at home. Among the crowd wandered Le Verrier in the costume of an academician, looking as if he had lost not found his planet. He seemed not to find it easy to exchange the music of the spheres for the music of fiddles. The Italian opera in Paris fell far short of Margaret's anticipations. So curtly does she judge it that one wonders whether she expected to find it a true parnassus dedicated to the ideal expression of the most delicate and lofty sentiment. Gresi appeared to her course in shallow, Pertziani mechanical and meretricious, Mario devoid of power. La Blocche alone satisfied her. These judgments show something of the weakness of offhand criticism. In the world of art, the critic who wishes to teach must first be taught of the artist. He must be very sure that he knows what a work of art is before he carps at what it is not. Relying on her own great intelligence and on her love of beautiful things, Margaret expected, perhaps, to understand too easily the merits and defects of what she saw and heard. In Paris Margaret met Alexandre Vatmar, intent upon his project of the exchange of superfluous books and documents between the public libraries of different countries. Busy as he was, he found time to be of service to her, and it was through his efforts that she was able to visit the imprimary royale and the mint. He also induced the librarian of the Chamber of Deputies to show her the manuscripts of Rousseau, which she found just as he has celebrated them, written on fine white paper tied with ribbon. Yellow and faded ages made them, says Margaret, yet at their touch I seem to feel the fire of youth, immortally glowing, more and more expansive, with which his soul has pervaded this century. Monsieur Vatmar introduced Margaret to one of the evening schools of the Flair-Cretienne, where she saw with pleasure how much can be accomplished for the working classes by evening lessons. Visions arose in my mind of all that might be done in our country by associations of men and women who have received the benefits of literary culture, giving such evening lessons throughout our cities and villages. Margaret wishes, however, that such disinterested effort in our own country should not be accompanied by the priestly robe and manner which for her marred the humanity of the Christian brotherhood of Paris. The establishment of the Protestant deaconesses is praised by Margaret. She visited also the school for idiots near Paris, where her feelings vented themselves in a shower of sweet and bitter tears, of joy at what has been done, of grief for all that I and others possess and cannot impart to these little ones. She was much impressed with the character of the master of the school, a man of seven or eight and twenty years, whose fine countenance she saw looking in love on those distorted and opaque vases of humanity. Turning her face southward, she thus takes leave of the great capital. Paris, I was sad to leave thee, thou wonderful focus, where ignorance ceases to be a pain, because there we can find such means daily to lessen it. Railroads were few in the France of forty years ago. Margaret came by diligence in boat to Lyon, to Avignon, where she waited through the snow to visit the tomb of Laura, and to Marseille, where she embarked for Genoa. Her first sight of this city did not disappoint her, but to her surprise she found the weather cold and ungenial. I could not realize that I had actually touched those shores to which I had looked forward all my life, where it seemed that the heart would expand and the whole nature be turned to delight. Seen by a cutting wind, the marble palaces, the gardens, the magnificent water view, failed to charm. Both here and in Leghorn Margaret visited Italians at their houses and found them very attractive, charming women, refined and eloquent men. The Mediterranean voyage was extended as far as Naples, which she characterizes as priest-ridden, misgoverned, full of dirty, degraded men and women, yet still most lovely. And here, after a week which appeared to be an exact copy of the miseries of a New England spring, with a wind, villainous, horrible, exactly like the worst east wind of Boston, Margaret found at last her own Italy, and found it beautiful, worthy to be loved and embraced, not talked about. Baye had still a hit divinity for me, visuvious of fresh baptism of fire, and Sorrento. Oh, Sorrento was beyond picture, beyond poesy. After Naples came Margaret's first view of Rome, where she probably arrived early in May, and where she remained until late in the month of June. We do not find among her letters of this period any record of her first impressions of the eternal city, the approach to which, before the days of railroads in Italy, was unspeakably impressive in solemn, seated in the midst of her seven hills, with the desolate Campania about her, one could hardly say whether her stony countenance invited the spirit of the age or defied it. Her medieval armor was complete at all points. Her heathen heart had kept Christianity far from it by using as exorcisms the very forms which, at the birth of that religion, had mediated between its spirit and the dull sense of the pagan world. It was the nineteenth century in America, the eighteenth in England, the seventeenth in France, and the fifteenth in Rome. The aged hands of the Grand Dom still held fast the key of her treasures. Her haughty front still said to ruin and desolation, Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it. So the writer first saw Rome in the winter of eighteen forty-three. Her walls seemed those of a mighty cephalcher in which even the newborn babe was born into death. The stagnation of thought, the prohibition of question, the denial of progress. Her ministers had a sweet lethian draft with which to lull the first clamours of awakening life, to quiet the first promptings of individual thought. It was the draft of Cersei, fragrant but fatal, and those who fed upon it became pathetic caricatures of humanity. Not so did Margaret find Rome in eighteen forty-seven. The intervening years had wrought a change. Within the defiant fortress of superstition a divine accident had happened. A man had been brought to the chair of Saint Peter, who felt his own human power too strongly to consent to the impotence of the traditional non-possimus. To the timid questioning of freedom from without he gave the bold answer of freedom from within. The papal crown had sometimes covered the brows of honest heroic men. Such and one would he prove himself, and his first message was to that effect. Fortunate fatal error. The thrones of the earth trembled at it. Crowned heads shook with the palsy of fear. The enslaved multitudes and their despised champions sent up a ringing shout to heaven, for the apocalyptic hour had come. The sixth seal was broken, and the canon of St. Angelo, which saluted the crowning of the new pontiff, really saluted the installation of the new era. Alas, many woes had to intervene before this new order could establish itself upon any permanent foundation. The Pope forsook his lofty ground. France, republican for a day only, became the ally of absolutism, and sent an army to subdue those who had believed the papal promise and her own. After a frightful interval of suffering and resistance, this was effected, and Pius was brought back, shorn of his blenders, a jove whose thunderbolt had been stolen, a man without an idea. Then came the confusion of endless doubt and question. What had been the secret of the Pope's early liberalism? What that of his voltfas? Was it true, as was afterwards maintained, that he had been from the first a puppet, moved by forces quite outside his own understanding, and that the moving hands not the puppet had changed? Or had he gone to war with mighty precedent, without counting the cost of the struggle, and so failed? Or had he undergone a poisoning, which broke his spirit and touched his brain? These were the questions of that time, not ours to answer, brought to mind here only because they belonged to the history of Margaret's years in Italy, years in which she learned to love that country as her own, and regarded as the land of her spiritual belonging. Chapter 12 of Margaret Fuller, Marquesa Ossoli, by Julia Ward Howe This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Margaret's first days in Rome. Antiquities. Visits to studios and galleries. Her opinions concerning the old masters. Her sympathy with the people. Pope Pius. Celebration of the birthday of Rome. Perugia. Bologna. Avena. Venice. A state ball on the Grand Canal. Milan. Manzoni. The Italian Lakes. Panama. Second visit to Florence. Grand Festival. In this first visit to Rome, Margaret could not avoid some touch of the disenchantment which usually comes with the experience of what has been long and fondly anticipated. She had soon seen all that is preserved of the fragments of the great time, and says, They are many and precious, yet there is not so much of high excellence as I looked for. They will not float the heart on a boundless sea of feeling like the starry night on our western prairies. She confesses herself more interested at this moment in the condition and prospects of the Italian people than in works of art, ancient or modern. In spite of this, she seems to have been diligent in visiting the galleries and studios of Rome. Among the latter she mentions those of the sculptors McDonald, Wolf, Tenorani, and Gott, whose groups of young people and animals were to her very refreshing after the grander attempts of the present time. She found our own Crawford just completing a bust of his wife, which is today a household treasure among her relatives. Margaret preferred his designs to those of Gibson, who was then considered the first of English sculptors. Among American painters she found Terry, Cransch, and Hicks at work. She saw the German overbeck surrounded by his pictures, looking, as if he had just stepped out of one of them, a lay monk with a pious eye and habitual morality of thought which limits every gesture. Among the old masters, Dominicino and Titian were those whom she learned to appreciate only by the actual sight of their paintings. Other artists, she thinks, may be well understood through copies and engravings, but not these. She enjoyed the frescoes of Caracci with the purest pleasure, tired soon of Guercino, who had been one of her favorites, and could not like Leonardo da Vinci at all. His pictures, she confesses, show a wonderful deal of study and thought. I hate to see the marks of them. I want a simple and direct expression of soul. For the explanation of these remarks we must refer the reader back to what Mr. Emerson has said of Margaret's idiosyncratic mode of judgment. Raphael and Michelangelo were already so well known to her through engravings that their paintings and frescoes made no new impression upon her. Not so was it with Michael's sculptures. Of his Moses, she says, it is the only thing in Europe so far which has entirely outgone my hopes. But the time was not one in which an enthusiast like Margaret could be content to withdraw from living issues into the calm impersonality of art. The popular life around her was throbbing with hopes and excitements to which it had long been unaccustomed. Visions of a living Italy flashed through the crevices of a stony despair which had lasted for ages. The prospect of representative government was held out to the Roman people, and the promise was welcomed by a torchlight procession which streamed through the Corso like a river of fire, and searching up to the Quirinol, where Pius then dwelt, made it a mound of light. The noble Greek figures were illuminated, and their calm aspect contrasted strongly with the animated faces of the Italians. The pope appeared on his balcony. The crowd shouted their vivas. He extended his arms. The crowd fell on their knees and received his benediction. Margaret says that she had never seen anything finer. In this new enthusiasm the people agreed to celebrate the birthday of Rome. A great dinner was given at the bouts of Titus in the open air. The company was on the grass in the area, the music at one end. Boxes filled with the handsome Roman women occupied the other sides. It was a new thing here, this popular dinner, and the Romans greeted it in an intoxication of hope and pleasure. Many political exiles amnestied by the pope were present. The Marquis de Zellio, painter, novelist and diplomatist, was the most noted of the speakers. From this renewed, regenerated Rome, Margaret went on to visit the northern cities of Italy, passing through Perugia on their way to Florence. In this neighborhood she explored the churches of Assisi and the Etruscan tombs, then newly discovered. She was enchanted with the beauty of Perugia, its noble situation and its treasures of early art. Florence interested her less than cities more purely Italian. The natural character is ironed out here and done up in a French pattern, yet there is no French vivacity nor Italian either. The Grand Duke was at the time in an impossible position between his allegiance to the liberalizing pope and his fealty to despotic Austria. Tuscany, accordingly, was glum as death on the outside, but glowing with dangerous fire within. Margaret, before leaving Florence, wrote, Florence is not like Rome. At first I could not bear the change, yet for the study of the fine arts it is a still, richer place. Worlds of thought have risen in my mind. Sometime you will have light from all. Here she visited the studios of her countrymen, Horatio Greeno and Hiram Powers, and after a month's stay went on to Bologna, where she greatly appreciated the truly Italian physiognomy of the city, and rejoiced in the record of its women artists and professors, nobly recognized and upheld by their fellow citizens. Then she went to Ravenna, prized for its curious remains, its byronic memories, and its famous pinetta, dear to the students of Dante. After this came a fortnight in Venice, which, like Angelo's Moses, surpassed her utmost expectations. There only I began to feel in its fullness Venetian art. It can only be seen in its own atmosphere. Never had I the least idea of what is to be seen at Venice. The city was, in those days, a place of refuge for throneless royalty. The Duchess Duberi and her son had each a palace on the Grand Canal. A queen of another sort, Talioni, here consoled herself for the quiet of her retirement from the stage. Margaret had the pleasure of an outside view of the fete given by the royal duchess in commemoration of her son's birthday. The aged Duchess d'Anguleme came from Vienna to be present on the occasion. It was a scene of fairyland, the palace full of light, so that from the canal could be seen even the pictures on the walls. Landing from the gondolas, the eloquently dressed ladies and gentlemen seemed to rise from the water. We also saw them glide up the great stair rustling their plumes, and in the reception room make and receive the customary grimaces. A fine band of music completed the attractions of the scene. Margaret, listening and looking hard by, thought of the stewards, bourbons and bonaparts in Italy, and offered up a prayer that other names might be added to the list, and other princes more rich in blood than in brain, might come to enjoy a perpetual villageatura in Italy. From Venice Margaret journeyed on to Milan, stopping on the way at Vicenza, Verona, Mantua, Lagodigarda, and Brescia. These ten days of travel opened to her long vistas of historic study, delightful to contemplate, even if hopeless to explore fully. No ten days of her previous life, she is sure, ever brought her so far in this direction. In approaching Milan her thoughts reverted to the promessi sposi. Nearly asleep for a moment she heard the sound of waters, and started up to ask, is that the adda? She had guessed rightly. The authorship of this classic work seemed to her to secure to its rider, Manzoni, the right of eminent domain, in and around Milan. Writing to Mr. Emerson from this city, she says, Today for the first time I have seen Manzoni. Manzoni has spiritual efficacy in his looks, his eyes still glow with delicate tenderness. His manners are very engaging, frank, expansive. Every word betokens the habitual elevation of his thoughts, and, what you care for so much, he says distinct good things. He lives in the house of his father's, in the simplest manner. Manzoni had, at the time, somewhat displeased his neighbors by a second marriage, scarcely considered suitable for him. Margaret, however, liked the new wife very well, and saw why he married her. She found less to see in Milan than in other Italian cities, and was glad to have there some days of quiet after the fatigues of her journey, which had been augmented at Brescia by a brief attack of fever. She mentions with interest the bust of the celebrated mathematician Maria Gaitana Agnesi, preserved in the Ambrosian library. Among her new acquaintances here were some young Italian radicals interested in ideas. The Italian lakes, and Switzerland, came next in the order of her travels. Her Swiss tours she calls a little romance by itself, promising to give, at a later date, a description of it, which we fail to find anywhere. Returning from it she passed a fortnight at Como, and saw something of the Italian nobility, who passed their summers on its shores. Here she enjoyed the society of the accomplished Marquesa Arclonati Visconti, whom she had already met in Florence, and who became to her a constant and valued friend. Margaret found no exaggeration in the enthusiasm expressed by poets and artists for the scenery of this lake region. The descriptions of it given by Goethe, Richter, and Taylor, had not prepared her for what she saw. Even Turner's pictures had fallen short of the real beauty. At Lugano she met Lady Franklin, the widow of the Arctic explorer. She returned to Milan by the 8th of September, in time for the great feast of the Madonna, and finally left the city with great regret and hope to return. In a letter to her brother Richard, she speaks of her radical friends there as a circle of aspiring youth, such as I have not known in any other city. Conspicuous among these was the young Marquis Guarieri Gonzaga, commended to her by a noble soul, the quietest sensibility, and a brilliant and ardent, though not a great mind. This gentleman has today a recognized position in Italy as a thoroughly enlightened and intelligent liberal. Margaret found among the Milanese, as she must have anticipated, a great hatred of the Austrian rule, aggravated the time of her second visit by acts of foolish and useless repression. On the occasion of the festivals attending the entry of a new archbishop, some youths, among them possibly Margaret's radical friends, determined to sing the hymn composed at Rome in honour of Pius IX. The consequence of this was a charge of the armed Austrian police upon the defenseless crowd of people present, who, giving way, were stabbed by them in the back. Margaret's grief and indignation at this state of things made her feel keenly the general indifference of her own travelling country-people to the condition and fate of Italy. People who call themselves Americans, miserable, thoughtless Esau's, unworthy their high birthright, absorbed at home by the lust of gain, the love of show, abroad they see only the quippages, the fine clothes, the food. They have no heart for the idea for the destiny of our own great nation. How can they feel the spirit that is struggling in this? The condition of Italy has been greatly altered for the better since Margaret wrote these words thirty-six years ago. But the American traveller of this type is today, to all intents and purposes, what he was then. Margaret left Milan before the end of this September to return to Rome. She explored with delight the great Certoza of Pavia, and in Parma saw the Correggio pictures of which she says, a wonderful beauty it is that informs them, not that which is the chosen food of my soul, yet a noble beauty and which did its message to me also. Parma and Modena appear to her, obliged to hold their breath while their poor, ignorant sovereigns skulk in corners, hoping to hide from the coming storm. Before reaching Rome, Margaret made a second visit to Florence. The liberty of the press had recently been established in Tuscany under happy auspices. This freedom took effect in the establishment of two liberal papers, Alba, the Dawn, and Patria, needless to translate. The aim of these was to educate youth and the working classes by promoting fearlessness in thought and temperance in action. The creation of the National Guard had given confidence to the people. Shortly before Margaret's arrival, this event had been celebrated by a grand public festival preceded by a general reconciliation of public and private differences and culminating in a general embracing and exchanging of banners. She speaks of this as a new great covenant of brotherly love in which all was done in that beautiful poetic manner peculiar to this artist people. In this feast of reconciliation, resident Americans bore their part, Horatio Grino taking the lead among them. Margaret's ears were refreshed by continually hearing in the streets the singing of the Roman hymn composed in honor of Pope Pius, wishing that her own country might send some substantial token of sympathy to the land of its great discoverers. She suggests that a cannon named for one of these would be the most fitting gift. The first letter from Rome after these days is dated October 18th, 1847. A period of agitation in Rome. Margaret's zeal for Italian freedom. Her return to Rome. Review of the civic guard. Church fasts and feasts. Pope Pius. The rainy season. Promise of representative government in Rome. Celebration of this event. Mazzini's letter to the Pope. Beauty of the spring. Italy in revolution. Popular excitements in Rome. Pope Pius deserts the cause of freedom. Margaret leaves Rome for Aquila. The period in which Margaret now found herself and its circumstances may best be described by the adjective billowy. Up and down, up and down went the hearts and hopes of the liberal party. Hither and thither ran the tides of popular affection, suspicion, and resentment. The Pope was the idol of the moment. Whoever might do wrong, he could not. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, described by Margaret as dull but well-meaning, yielded to pressure whenever it became most severe. The Austrian occupation was cowardly and cruel as ever. The minor princes, who had been from their birth incapable of an idea, tried as well as they could to put on some semblance of concession without really yielding anything. The King of Sardinia was spoken of among the liberals as a worthless man, without heart or honour, only likely to be kept on the right side by the stress of circumstance. This judgment of him was reversed in after-years, when, beside Kazaguiti windows, Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote, with steadfast hand, yea, verily, Charles Albert has died well. The royalty of Naples tried to quiet its tremors with blood, and trembled still. And in the midst of all this turmoil down comes Louis Philippe from his throne, and France has shaken to her very centre. To follow Margaret through all the fluctuations and excitements consequent upon these events would be no easy task. She was obviously in close relations with the leading Italian liberals, and probably trusted their statements and shared their hopes, fears and resentments. Constant always in her faith in human nature, and in her zeal for the emancipation of Italy, the dissolving view before her could leave her no other fixed belief. Her favourites, her beloved Italian people, even her adored Rome, appeared to her at different times in very, very slights. Starting from the date given above, we will follow, as well as we can, her progress through the constantly shifting scenes that surrounded her, from whose intense interest she could not, for one moment, isolate herself. Of her return to Rome, Margaret says, all mean things were forgotten in the joy that rushed over me like a flood. The difference between a sight-scene tour and a winter's residence in such a place indeed like that between a chance-acquaintance and an intimate one. Settled in a pleasant apartment on the Corso, in a house of loving Italians, Margaret promised herself a winter of tranquil companionship with what she calls the true Rome. She did not find the Italian autumn beautiful as she had expected, but she enjoyed the October festas of the Traste Verini and went with half-Rome to see the manoeuvres of the civic guard Sampania near the tomb of Cecilia Metella. To the music of the Bolognese march six thousand Romans moved in battle-array in full sight of the grandiose debris of the heroic time. Some sight-scene Margaret still undertook as we learn from a letter dated November 17 in which she speaks of going about in a coach with several people and confesses that she dissipates her thoughts on outward beauty. Such was her delight at this time in the atmosphere of the European mind that she even wished for a time to be delivered from the sound of the English language. The beginning of this winter was, as it usually is in Italy, a season of fine weather. On the 17th of December Margaret rises to bask in beneficent floods of sunlight and to find upon her table the roses and grapes which, in New England, would have been costly hot-house luxuries. Her letter of this date is full of her delight in having penetrated from the outer aspect to the heart of Rome, classic, medieval, and modern. And here we come upon the record of those first impressions concerning which we laterally indulged in some speculation. Ah, how joyful to see once more this Rome instead of the pitiful, peddling, anglicized Rome first viewed in unutterable dismay from the coupe of the Vettura. A Rome all full of taverns, lodging-houses, cheating chambermaids, violist valet de place, and fleas. A nioby of nations indeed. Ah, why? Secretly the heart-blast themed, did the son omit to kill her too when all the glorious race which wore her crown fell beneath his ray. All this had now disappeared from Margaret, and a new enchantment had taken the place of the old illusion and disappointment, for she was now able to disentangle the strange jumble of ancient and modern Rome. In this more understanding and familiar view, she says, the old kings, the councils and tribunes, the emperors drunk with blood and gold, returned for us. The seven hills tower, the innumerable temples glitter, and the Via Sacra swarms with triumphal life once more. In the later papal Rome she discerns through the confusion of right and legend a sense which, to her, marks the growth of the human spirit struggling to develop its life. And the Rome of that day was dear to her in spite of its manifold corruptions, dear for the splendor of the race surviving every enslaving and deforming influence, dear for the newborn hope of freedom which she considered safe in the nursing of Pope Pius. Most of the occasions chronicled by Margaret and her letters of this period are of the sort familiarly known to travellers and even to readers of books of travel. The prayers for the dead, early in November, the festival of San Carlo Borromeo, the veiling of a nun, the worship of the wooden image called The Most Holy Child, idolatrous Margaret thinks, as that of the capitaline Jove, the blessing of the animals, the festival of the Magi at the propaganda. These events are all described by her with much good thought and suggestion. She saw the Pope occasionally at the grand ceremonies of the church and saw the first shadow fall upon his popularity, partly in consequence of some public utterances of his, which seemed to Margaret deplorably weak in thought and absolute in manner, and which she could not but interpret as implying that whatever reform might in future militate against sacerdotal traditions it would go to the wall in order that the priest might triumph. The glorious weather had departed almost as soon as she had sung its praises, namely on the 18th of December, after which time her patience was sorely tried by forty days of rain, accompanied by abominable reeking odours, such as blessed cities swept by the sea breeze never know. We copy from one of her letters a graphic picture of this time of trial. It has been dark all day, though the lamp has only been lit half an hour. The music of the day has been, first, the atrocious arias, which last in the corso till near noon. Then came the wicked organ grinder, who, apart from the horror of the noise, grinds exactly the same obsolete abominations as at home or in England, the Copenhagen waltz, Home sweet home, and all that. The cruel chance that both an English my-lady and a counsellor from the provinces lives opposite keeps him constantly before my window, hoping for Bayoki. Within the three pet dogs of my landlady, bereft of their walk, unable to employ their miserable legs and eyes, exercise themselves by a continual barking, which is answered by all the dogs in the neighbourhood. An urchin returning from the laundress, guided with the symphony, lays down his white bundle in the gutter, seats himself on the curb-stone, and attempts an imitation of the music of cats as a tribute to the concert. The doorbell rings. Kie, who is it? cries the handmaid. Enter a man poisoning me at once with the smell of the worst possible cigars, insisting I shall look upon frightful, ill-cut cameos and worse-designed mosaics, made by some friend of his. Man of ill odours and meanest smile, I am no countess to be fooled by you. These passages give us some glimpses of our friend in the surroundings which at first gave her so much satisfaction, and whose growing discomforts were lightened for her by her native sense of humour. In spite of this, however, the dirt, the gloom, the desolation of Rome affected her severely. Her appetite failed, and with it her strength, while nervous headache and fever conspired to make the whole season appear, in review, the most idle and most suffering one of her life. The most important public event of the winter in Rome seems to have been the inauguration of a new council with some show of popular election, and to have been on the whole satisfactory. As this was considered a decided step in the direction of progress, preparations were made for its celebration by the representatives of other Italian states and of various friendly nations. The Americans resident in Rome were aroused to an unwanted degree of interest, the gentlemen subscribing funds for the materials of a flag, and the ladies meeting to make it. To accompany this banner, a magnificent spread eagle was procured. Everything was in the height of preparation when some counter-influence brought to bear upon the pope led him to issue an edict forbidding this happy concourse of the flags of all nations, and allowing only that of Rome to be carried in honour of the occasion. Margaret saw in this the work of the oscurantists ever on the watch to do mischief to the popular cause. Despite the disappointment of the citizens at this curtailment of their show, the streets were decorated and filled with people in the best humour. Margaret was able to see nothing but this crowd, but found even that a great pleasure. A ball at the Argentina Theatre terminated the festivities of the day. Here were seen Lord Minto, Prince Corsini, now senator, the Torlonias, in the uniform of the Civic Guard, Princess Torlonia, the beautiful Colonna, in a sash of their colours which she waved often in answer to their greetings. The finest show of the evening, Margaret says, was the native Saltarello, danced by the Trasteverini in their gayest costumes. In this dance, which is at once very naive and very natural, Margaret saw the embodiment of the Italian wine, the Italian sun. In the course of this winter it became evident that the liberalism of Pionono would not stand the test of any extensive practical application. His position was indeed a very difficult one. The natural allies and supporters of the papacy being, without exception, the natural enemies of the new ideas to which he had so unconsciously opened the door. Margaret relates various attempts made by Austrians in Lumberdy and by Oskurentists in Rome to excite the people to overt acts of violence and thus gain a pretext for the employment of armed force. In Rome, on New Year's Day, an attempt of this sort was near succeeding, the governor of the city having ungraciously forbidden the people to wait upon the Pope at the Quirinal and to ask for his blessing. Fortunately, instead of rising in rebellion, they betook themselves to Senator Corsini by whose friendly interposition the Pope was induced to make a progress through the city. Interrupted only by the prayers of his subjects who, falling on their knees as he passed, cried out, Holy Father, don't desert us. Don't forget us. Don't listen to our enemies. The Pope in tears, replying, Fear nothing, my people. My heart is yours. And this tender-hearted populace seeing that the Pope looked ill and that the weather was inclement begged him to return to the Quirinal, which he did, the popular leader, Cicerochio, following his carriage. A letter from Mazzini to Pope Pius, printed in Paris, had reached Italy by this time and was translated by Margaret for publication in the New York Tribune. Some passages of it will not be out of place here, as showing the position and outlook of a man by far the most illustrious of the Italian exiles and one whose purity of life and excellence of character gave to his opinions a weight beyond their intellectual value. After introducing himself as one who adores God, Mazzini says that he adores also an idea which seems to him to be of God. That of Italy is an angel of moral unity and of progressive civilization for the nations of Europe. Having studied the great history of humanity and having there found Rome twice directress of the world, first through the emperors, later through the Popes, he has led to believe that the great city is destined to a third and more lasting period of supremacy. I believe that another European world ought to be revealed from the eternal city at the capital and has the Vatican. And this faith has not abandoned me through years, poverty, and griefs which God alone knows. One cannot help pausing here to reflect that in both historic instances the supremacy of Rome was due to a superiority of civilization which he has long lost and is not likely to regain in this day of the world. Mazzini says to the Pope there is no man this day in all Europe more powerful than you. You then have, most holy father, vast duties. He now passes on to a review of the situation. Europe is in a tremendous crisis of doubts and desires. Faith is dead. Catholicism is lost in despotism. Protestantism is lost in anarchy. The intellect travels in a void. The bad adore calculation, physical good. The good pray in hope. Nobody believes. I call upon you after so many ages of doubt and corruption to be the apostle of eternal truth. I call upon you to make yourself the servant of all, to sacrifice yourself if needful so that the will of God may be done on earth as it is in heaven, to hold yourself ready to glorify God in victory or to repeat with resignation if you must fail the words of Gregory VII. I die in exile because I have loved justice and hated iniquity. But for this to fulfill the mission which God confides to you two things are needful. Be a believer and to unify Italy. The first of these two clauses is here amplified into an exhortation which, edifying in itself, had in it nothing likely to suggest to the person addressed any practical solution of the difficulties which surrounded him. Having shown the head of Christendom the way to write belief, Mazzini next instructs him how to unify Italy. For this you have no need to work but only to bless him who works through you and in your name. Gather round you those who best represent the national party. Do not beg alliances with princes. Say, the unity of Italy ought to be a fact of the 19th century and it will suffice. Leave our pens free. Leave free the circulation of ideas in what regards this point, the final for us, of the national unity. Here follows some special directions with regard to the several powers to be dealt with in the projected unification. The result of all this, foreseen by Mazzini, would be the foundation of a government unique in Europe which will destroy the absurd divorce between spiritual and temporal power and in which you shall be chosen the principle of which the men chosen by the nation will make the application. The unity of Italy, says Mazzini, is a work of God. It will be fulfilled with you or without you. But I address you because I believe you worthy to take the initiative in a work so vast because the revival of Italy under the aegis of a religious idea of a standard not of rights but of duties would be behind all the revolutions of other countries and place her immediately at the head of European progress. Pure and devout as are the sentiments uttered in this letter the views which accompany them have been shown by subsequent events to be only partially just, only partially realizable. The unification of Italy may today be called a work of God but had it been accomplished on the theocratic basis imagined by Mazzini it could not have led either Europe or Italy itself to the point now reached through manifold endeavor and experience. Spirits may be summoned from the upper air as well as from the vasty deep but they will not come until the time is ripe for their work and yet our prayer and prophecy of this sort sacred and indispensable functions in the priesthood of ideas. On March 29, 1848 Margaret is able to praise once more the beauty of the scene around her. Now the Italian heavens wear again their deep blue. The sun is glorious. The melancholy lusters are stealing again over the Campania and hundreds of larks sing unwearyed above its ruins. Nature seems in sympathy with the great events that are transpiring. What were these events which Margaret says stunned her by the rapidity and grandeur of their march? The face of Italy was changed indeed. Sicily was in revolt. Naples in revolution. Milan, Venice, Modena and Panama were driving out their tyrants and in Rome men and women were weeping and dancing for joy at the news. Abroad Louis Philippe had lost his throne and metonic his power. Margaret saw the Austrian arms dragged through the streets and burned in the piazza del popolo. The Italians embraced one another and cried, Miracolo, Providenza! The tribune Ciceroacchio fed the flame with faggots. Adam Mishkowitz, the great poet of Poland, long exiled from his country, looked on. The double-headed Austrian eagle was torn from the front of the Palazzo di Venezia and in his place was set the inscription Alta Italia. By April 1st the Austrian viceroy had capitulated at Verona and Italy appeared to be, or was for the time, free, independent, and won. Poor Pope Pius, meanwhile, had fallen more and more into the rear of the advancing movement and finally kept step with it only as he was compelled to do, secretly looking for the moment when he should be able to break from the ranks which he himself had once led. On May 7th Margaret writes of his final dereliction to the cause of freedom by which phrase she describes his refusal to declare war against Austria after having himself done and approved of much which led in that direction. The position of the Pontiff was now most unhappy. Alarmed at the agitation and turmoil about him it is probable that he bitterly regretted the acts in which he had been sincere but of which he had not foreseen the consequences. Margaret describes him as isolated in his palace, guided by his confessor, weak and treacherous in his movements, privately disowning the measures which the popular feeling compelled him to allow was secretly doing his utmost to counteract them. In the month of May Margaret enjoyed some excursions into the environs of Rome. She visited Albano, Frascati and Ostia and passed some days at Subiaco and at Tivoli. On the twenty-eighth of the same month she left Rome for the summer and retired to Aquila, a little ruined town in the Abruzzi mountains where, after so many painful excitements, she hoped to find tranquility and rest. End of Chapter 13