THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
war for their transportation to the United States that offer was unhesitatingly accepted. But Kossuth did not intend to emigrate to America for the purpose of establishing there his permanent residence. He was far from considering his mission as ended and the defeat of his cause as irretrievable. He, too, with the sanguine temperament of the exile, dreamed of the possibility of inducing the liberal part of the old and also of the new world to take up arms against the oppressors of Hungary, or at least to aid his country by diplomatic interference. And, indeed, could this have been accomplished by a mere appeal to the emotions and the imagination, Kossuth would have been the man to achieve it. Of all the events of the years 1848 and 1849, the heroic struggle of the Hungarians for their national independence had excited the liveliest sympathy in other countries. The brave generals, who for a time went from victory to victory and then succumbed to the overwhelming power of the Russian intervention, appeared like the champions of a heroic legend, and among and above them stood the figure of Kossuth like that of a prophet whose burning words kindled and kept alive the fire of patriotism in the hearts of his people. There was everything of heroism and tragic misfortune to make this epic grand and touching, and the whole romance of the revolutionary time found in Kossuth's person its most attractive embodiment. The sonorous notes of his eloquence had, during the struggle, been heard far beyond the boundaries of Hungary in the outside world. Not a few of his lofty sentences, his poetic illustrations and his thrilling appeals had passed from mouth to mouth among us young people at the German universities. And his picture, with thoughtful forehead, the dreamy eyes and his strong, beard-framed chin, became everywhere an object of admiring reverence.
When now, delaying his journey to America, he arrived
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