Page:Female Prose Writers of America.djvu/339

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SARA J. CLARKE.
301

with the fire of freedom yet warming the veins whose young blood once flowed in her cause, I should wish to look on Kossuth and die.

Who can say this man has lived in vain? Though it was not his to strike the shackles from his beloved land, till she should stand free and mighty before Heaven, has he not struggled and suffered for her? Has he not spoken hallowed and immortal words—words which have gone forth to the nations, a power and a prophecy, which shall sound on and on, long after his troubled life is past—on and on, till their work is accomplished in great deeds—and the deeds become history, to be read by free men with quickened breath, and eyes that lighten with exultation? And it is a great thing that Europe, darkened by superstition and crushed by despotism, has known another hero—a race of heroes, I might say, for the Hungarian uprising has been a startling and terrific spectacle for kings and emperors. And “the end is not yet.” There must be a sure, a terrible retribution for the oppressors—a yet more fearful finale to this world-witnessed tragedy. While the heavens endure, let us hold on to the faith that the right shall prevail against the wrong, when the last long struggle shall come, that the soul of freedom is imperishable, and shall triumph over all oppressions on the face of the whole earth.