o cunning is the daemon. He is become
the inspiring soul of his people. He saw Rome, to which all his hopes
through life tended, for the first time as a Roman citizen, and to
become in a few days its ruler. He has animated, he sustains her to a
glorious effort, which, if it fails, this time, will not in the age.
His country will be free. Yet to me it would be so dreadful to cause
all this bloodshed, to dig the graves of such martyrs.

Then Rome is being destroyed; her glorious oaks; her villas, haunts of
sacred beauty, that seemed the possession of the world forever,--the
villa of Raphael, the villa of Albani, home of Winkelmann, and
the best expression of the ideal of modern Rome, and so many other
sanctuaries of beauty,--all must perish, lest a foe should level his
musket from their shelter. _I_ could not, could not!

I know not, dear friend, whether I ever shall get home across that
great ocean, but here in Rome I shall no longer wish to live. O, Rome,
_my_ country! could I imagine that the triumph of what I held dear was
to heap such desolation on thy head!

Speaking of the republic, you say, do not I wish Italy had a great
man? Mazzini is a great man. In mind, a great poetic statesman; in
heart, a lover; in action, decisive and full of resource as Caesar.
Dearly I love Mazzini. He came in, just as I had finished the first
letter to you. His soft, radiant look makes melancholy music in my
soul; it consecrates my present life, that, like the Magdalen, I may,
at the important hour, shed all the consecrated ointment on his head.
There is one, Mazzini, who understands thee well; who knew thee no
less when an object of popular fear, than now of idolatry; and who, if
the pen be not held too feebly, will help posterity to know thee too.

TO W.H.C.

_Rome, July_ 8, 1849.--I do not yet find myself tranquil and recruited
from the painful excitements of these last days. But, amid the ruined
hopes of Rome, the shameful oppressions she is beginning to suffer,
amid these noble, bleeding martyrs, my brothers, I cannot fix my
thoughts on anything else.

I write that you may assure mother of my safety, which in the last
days began to be seriously imperilled. Say, that as soon as I can find
means of conveyance, without an expense too enormous, I shall go again
into the mountains. There I shall find pure, bracing air, and I hope
stillness, for a time. Say, she need feel no anxiety, if she do not
hear from me for some ti