extent of carrying us into a war
with Russia, or of banding us, with all liberal governments, in a war
with the despotic governments, so that Europe should be turned into a
caldron of blood for years to come, millions of people sacrificed, [227]
unutterable miseries inflicted, the present frame of society torn in
pieces; and, when all is done, the human race no better off,--worse off?
You say, no. Well, anything short of that I am willing Kossuth should
accomplish. Any expression of opinion that he can get here, from the
people or the government, asserting the rights of nations and the
wrong of oppression, let him have,--let all the world have it. Moral
influence, gradually changing the world, is what I want. But Kossuth
and the Liberals of Europe want to bring on that great war of opinion,
which, I fear, will come only too soon. I fear that Kossuth has fairly
broached the question of intervention here, and that in two years
it will enter the ballot box. I fear these tendencies to universal
overthrow that are now revealing themselves all over the civilized
world.

Kossuth is a man all enthusiasm and eloquence, but not a man, I judge,
of deep practical sagacity. A sort of Hamlet, he seems to me,--graceful,
delicate, thoughtful, meditative, moral, noble-minded; and I should not
wonder if he was now feeling something of Hamlet's burden: "The time is
out of joint: oh, cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!"

A lady, who saw him two days ago, told me that so sad a face she never
saw; it haunted her.

It was on his return to his Berkshire home, after this winter in
Washington, that the next merry little letter, describing his renewed
acquaintance with his country neighbors, was sent to me. The custom of
ringing the church bell at noon and at nine in the evening had not then
been relinquished, although it has since died out.

[228] To his Daughter Mary.

SHEFFIELD, July 23, 1852.

DEAR MOLLY,--Dr. K. and H. called upon us the very evening after we
arrived! Mrs. K. as usual. Mrs. B. is on a visit to her friends; the
children with their grandmother. . . . Mr. D. does n't raise any tobacco
this summer. I saw Mr. P. lying fiat on his back yesterday,--not
floored, however, but high and dry on Mr. McIntyre's counter. Mr. M.
has succeeded Doten, Root, and Mansfield. These three gentlemen have
all flung themselves upon the paper-mill, hardly able to supply
the Sheffield authors. Mr. Austin continues to announce th