Volume I Part 14 (2/2)
”Ever faithfully yours,
”Joseph Mazzini.”
I explained to the readers of the _Reasoner_ the great service they might render to European freedom at that time by a s.h.i.+lling subscription from each. Very soon we received 4,000 s.h.i.+llings. Later (August 3, 1852) Mazzini, writing from Chelsea, said:--
”My dear Sir,--I have still to thank you for the n.o.ble appeal you have inserted in the _Reasoner_ in favour of the s.h.i.+lling Subscription in aid of European freedom. My friend Giovanni Peggotti, fearing that physical and moral torture might weaken his determination and extort from him some revelations, has hung himself in his dungeon at Milan, with his own cravat. State trials are about being initiated by military commissions, and General Benedek, the man who directed the wholesale Gallician butcheries, is to preside over them. At Forli, under Popish rule, enforced by Austrian bayonets, four working men have been shot as guilty of having defended themselves against the aggression of some Government agents. The town was fined in a heavy sum, because on that mournful day many of the inhabitants left it, and the theatres were empty in the evening.
”Faithfully yours,
”Joseph Mazzini.”
People of England have mostly forgotten now what Italians had to suffer when their necks were under the ferocious heel of Austria.
In a short time I collected a further 5,000 s.h.i.+llings, making 9,000 in all, and I had the pleasure of sending to Mazzini a cheque for 450.*
* The expenses of collection I defrayed myself.
A s.h.i.+lling subscription had been previously proposed mainly at the instigation of W. J. Linton, which bore the names of Joseph Cowen, George Dawson, Dr. Frederic Lees, George Serle Phillips, C. D. Collet, T. S. Duncombe, M.P., Viscount G.o.derich, M.P. (now Marquis of Ripon), S. M. Hawks, Austin Holyoake, G. J. Holyoake, Thornton Hunt, Douglas Jerrold, David Ma.s.son, Edward Miall, M.P., Professor Newman, James Stansfeld, M.P. Some of these names are interesting to recall now. But it was not until Mazzini asked me to make an appeal in the _Reasoner_ that response came. Its success then was owing to the influence of Mazzini's great name. Workmen in mill and mine gave because he wished it.
I published Weill's ”Great War of the Peasants,” the first and only English translation, in aid of the war in Italy. The object was to create confidence in the struggle of the Italian peasantry to free their country, and to give reasons for subscriptions from English working men to aid their Italian brethren. Madame Venturi made the translation, on Mazzini's suggestion, for the _Secular World_, in which I published it.
In 1855 wis.h.i.+ng to publish certain papers of 'azzini s, I wrote asking him to permit me to do so, when he replied in the most remarkable letter I received from him:
”Dear Sir,--You are welcome to any writing or fragment of mine which you may wish to reprint in the _Reasoner_. Thought, according to me, is, as soon as publicly uttered, the property of _all_, not an _individual_ one. In this special case, it is with true pleasure that I give the consentment you ask for. The deep esteem I entertain for your personal character, for your sincere love of truth, perseverance, and n.o.bly tolerant habits, makes me wish to do more; and time and events allowing, I shall.
”We pursue the same end--progressive improvement, a.s.sociation, transformation of the corrupted medium in which we are now living, overthrow of all idolatries, shams, lies, and conventionalities. We both want man to be not the poor, pa.s.sive, cowardly, phantasmagoric unreality of the actual time, thinking in one way and acting in another; bending to power which he hates and despises, carrying empty Popish, or thirty-nine article formulas _on_ his brow and none within; but a fragment of the living truth, a real individual being linked to collective humanity, the bold seeker of things to come; the gentle, mild, loving, yet firm, uncompromising, inexorable apostle of all that is just and heroic--the Priest, the Poet, and the Prophet. We widely differ as to the _how_ and _why_. I do dimly believe that all we are now struggling, hoping, discussing, and fighting for, is a _religious_ question. We want a new intellect of life; we long to tear off one more veil from the ideal, and to realise as much as we can of it; we thirst after a deeper knowledge of _what_ we are and of the _why_ we are. We want a _new heaven_ and a _new earth_. We may not all be now conscious of this, but the whole history of mankind bears witness to the inseparable union of these terms. The clouds which are now floating between our heads and G.o.d's sky will soon vanish and a bright sun s.h.i.+ne on high. We may have to pull down the despot, the arbitrary dispenser of _grace_ and _d.a.m.nation_, but it will only be to make room for the Father and Educator.
”Ever faithfully yours,
”Joseph Mazzini.”
Another incident has instruction in it, still necessary and worth remembering in the political world. In 1872 I found in the _Boston Globe_, then edited by Edin Ballou, a circ.u.mstantial story by the _Const.i.tutional_ of that day, setting forth that Sir James Hudson, our Minister at Turin, begged Cavour to accord an interview to an English gentleman. When Cavour received him, he was surprised by the boldness, lucidity, depth, and perspicacity of his English visitor, and told him that if he (Cavour) had a countryman of like quality, he would resign the Presidency of the Council in favour of him, whereupon the ”Englishman” handed Cavour his card bearing the name of Joseph Mazzini, much to his astonishment.
There are seven things fatal to the truth of this story received and circulated throughout Europe without question:--
1. Sir James Hudson could never have introduced to the Italian Minister a person as an Englishman, whom Sir James knew to be an Italian.
2. Nor was Mazzini a man who would be a party to such an artifice.
3. Cavour would have known Mazzini the moment he saw him.
4. Mazzini's Italian was such as only an Italian could speak, and Cavour would know it.
5. Mazzini's Republican and Propagandist plans were as well known to Cavour as Cobden's were to Peel; and Mazzini's strategy of conspiracy was so repugnant to Cavour, that he must have considered his visitor a wild idealist, and must have become mad himself to be willing to resign his position in Mazzini's favour.
6. Cavour could not have procured his visitor's appointment in his place if he had resigned.
7. Mazzini could not have offered Cavour his card, for the reason that he never carried one. As in Turin he would be in hourly danger of arrest, he was not likely to carry about with him an engraved identification of himself.
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