it was
yet a noble one, and its true history should be known in this country
and in all lands, that justice may be done to those who sacrificed
much, some even life, in behalf of liberty. Her peculiar fitness to
write the history of this struggle is well expressed by Mr. Greeley,
in his Introduction to one of her volumes recently published.[A] "Of
Italy's last struggle for liberty and light," he says, "she might
not merely say, with the Grattan of Ireland's kindred effort, half a
century earlier, 'I stood by its cradle; I followed its hearse.'
She might fairly claim to have been a portion of its incitement, its
animation, its informing soul. She bore more than a woman's part in
its conflicts and its perils; and the bombs of that ruthless army
which a false and traitorous government impelled against the ramparts
of Republican Rome, could have stilled no voice more eloquent in its
exposures, no heart more lofty in its defiance, of the villany which
so wantonly drowned in blood the hopes, while crushing the dearest
rights, of a people, than those of Margaret Fuller."

[Footnote A: Introduction to Papers on Literature and Art, p. 8.]

Inadequate, indeed, are these letters as a memorial and vindication of
that struggle, in comparison with the history which Madame Ossoli had
written, and which perished with her; but well do they deserve to be
preserved, as the record of a clear-minded and true-hearted eyewitness
of, and participator in, this effort to establish a new and better
Roman Republic. In one respect they have an interest higher than
would the history. They were written during the struggle, and show the
fluctuations of hope and despondency-which animated those most deeply
interested. I have thought it right to leave unchanged all expressions
of her opinion and feeling, even when it is evident from the letters
themselves that these were gradually somewhat modified by ensuing
events. Especially did this change occur in regard to the Pope, whom
she at first regarded, in common with all lovers of freedom in this
and other lands, with a hopefulness which was doomed to a cruel
disappointment. She was, however, never for a moment deceived as to
his character. His heart she believed kindly and good; his intellect,
of a low order; his views as to reform, narrow, intending only what is
partial, temporary, and alleviating, never a permanent, vital reform,
which should remove the cause of the ills on account of which his
people