y that we should rapidly organise in order to
attain by concentrated action the two objects in view. I shall send
you in two days a circular issued by our Central Giunta, containing
definite instructions for general organisation, which must be made
uniform for all those who rally round this banner. You will do the
best you can.

"I take it that you are in touch with Melioni and friends. In a few
days you will receive the visit of a friend of mine, Lauri di
Forli, with whom I wish you to hold yourself in perfect agreement.

"Good-bye. May we in full earnest make a final effort that shall
lead the country out of that most disgraceful rut of useless
chatter of impossible schemes and of compromises between the
childish and the jesuitical, that make us appear decrepit in the
eyes of Europe when we speak of regeneration and of the
introduction of a new era in our lives. Love me.--Yours,

GIUSEPPE MAZZINI.

"LOMBARD FRONTIER,

_Nov. 15, 1849_."

I have two short letters written to the same friend and dated 1869 and
1871, not of general interest, but the latter concluding with the
characteristic sentence:

"Il meglio sarebbe che si aprisse la via cercata per lunghi anni da noi;
e s'aprira; ma siamo corrotti e privi di coraggio morale.

"Persisto nondimeno e persistero finche vivo."

"The best would be, that the road should open which we have sought for
many years, and open it will; but we are corrupt and devoid of moral
courage. I persist nevertheless, and shall persist as long as I live."

The epistles he received he sometimes showed me as curiosities. Some
came from his admirers, other from his detractors, either frequently
total strangers to him. There were letters couched in terms of most
eccentric adulation, others that unceremoniously relegated him to the
regions of perdition. One merely requested him to go to the antipodes,
in order that he might be well out of the way of regenerated Italy.
Another, less urbane, addressed him as "Uomo aborrito!" ("abhorred
man"), and continued in a similar strain of abuse. Mazzini took it all
pleasantly; the lion's tail was once for all proof against any amount of
pulling.

The patriotic dreams of Mazzini were gradually to be realised, in a
measure, at least; for although his ideal--a Republic in place of a
Monarchy--seemed hopeless of attainment, the hated foreigner was
expelled, or had retir