Reading a book called "The Last Days of the Republic in Rome," I see
that my letter, giving my impressions of that period, may well have
seemed to you strangely partial. If we can meet as once we did,
and compare notes in the same spirit of candor, while making mutual
allowance for our different points of view, your testimony and
opinions would be invaluable to me. But will you have patience with my
democracy,--my revolutionary spirit? Believe that in thought I am more
radical than ever. The heart of Margaret you know,--it is always the
same. Mazzini is immortally dear to me--a thousand times deafer for
all the trial I saw made of him in Rome;--dearer for all he suffered.
Many of his brave friends perished there. We who, less worthy,
survive, would fain make up for the loss, by our increased devotion
to him, the purest, the most disinterested of patriots, the most
affectionate of brothers. You will not love me less that I am true to
him.
Then, again, how will it affect you to know that I have united my
destiny with that of an obscure young man,--younger than myself; a
person of no intellectual culture, and in whom, in short, you will
see no reason for my choosing; yet more, that this union is of long
standing; that we have with us our child, of a year old, and that it
is only lately I acquainted my family with the fact?
If you decide to meet with me as before, and wish to say something
about the matter to your friends, it will be true to declare that
there have been pecuniary reasons for this concealment. But _to
you_, in confidence, I add, this is only half the truth; and I cannot
explain, or satisfy my dear friend further. I should wish to meet
her independent of all relations, but, as we live in the midst of
"society," she would have to inquire for me now as Margaret Ossoli.
That being done, I should like to say nothing more on the subject.
However you may feel about all this, dear Madame Arconati, you will
always be the same in my eyes. I earnestly wish you may not feel
estranged; but, if you do, I would prefer that you should act upon it.
Let us meet as friends, or not at all. In all events, I remain ever
yours,