THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
enchanting eloquence and overwhelmed him with sympathy and admiration. The President of the United States had reverentially pressed his hand and Congress had received him with extraordinary honors. There had been no end of parades and receptions and festive banquets. But the government of the United States, with the approval of the American people, steadfastly maintained the traditional policy of non-interference in European affairs. Kossuth's appeal for “substantial aid” to his country in its struggle for independence had been in vain. When he returned to England he found that the popular enthusiasm there, which had greeted him but a few months before, was burned out. He still tried to continue the advocacy of his cause by delivering addresses in various English cities, and was listened to with the most respectful and sympathetic attention as a very distinguished lecturer. When he appeared on the streets he was no longer cheered by multitudes surging around him. Persons recognizing him would take off their hats and whisper to one another: “There goes Kossuth, the great Hungarian patriot.” His cause, the independence of his country, seemed to be dead and buried.
Mazzini and Kossuth—how strangely fate played with those two men! Mazzini had all his life plotted, and struggled, and suffered for the unification of Italy under a free national government. Not many years after the period of which I speak the national unity of Italy did indeed come, first partially aided by the man Mazzini hated most, the French Emperor Louis Napoleon, and then greatly advanced by the marvelous campaign of Garibaldi, which is said to have been originally planned by Mazzini himself, and which reads in history like a romantic adventure of the time of the Crusades. Finally the unification of Italy was fully achieved under the auspices of the dynasty of Savoy; and Mazzini the republican at last died
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