Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1920 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER X THE REVOLUTIONIST As Margaret repeatedly declared, her heart and her ambition were not in her writing. They were in politics. She was an excellent conspirator, combining, as she did, a perfectly sincere and truthful nature with the utmost self-control in the keeping of secrets. Emerson referred to this quality of hers in i the letter of introduction which he sent to Carlyle. "I need not, and yet perhaps I need say, that M. F. is the safest of all possible persons who ever took pen in hand; Prince Metternich's closet not closer nor half so honorable." This recommendation had less interest perhaps for the Carlyles than it had for Mazzini whom she met at their house. The Chief had great need of safe and reliable friends in those days, when he controlled a whispering gallery which ran from London to Italy and could outstrip the government itself in the speed of its messages. Mazzini trusted women especially. He said that he inherited his "republican instincts" from his mother, and in his long life of exile and loneliness, women were among his closest friends and counsellors. Jane Carlyle, George Sand, Giulia Modena, and Margaret Fuller were among his conspicuous and influential friends. He preached feminism to the Italian workingmen, who needed it sadly enough, in all truth, in these words: " Love and respect woman. Look to her not only for comfort, but for strength and inspiration and the redoubling of your intellectual and moral powers. Blot out from your mind any idea of superiority; you have none. There is no inequality between man and woman; but as often is the case between two men, only different tendencies and special vocations. Woman and man are two notes without which the human chord cannot be struck." And in England, he...