Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 by Unknown
page 64 of 372 (17%)

No impressionable youth could fail to be affected by such an influence as
this, and if in those days I shrank from Mr. Cowen's views on home
politics as being too advanced, I was one of the most enthusiastic of his
adherents in his self-appointed mission against the tyrannies of the
Continent. How well do I remember some of the faces and figures of Mr.
Cowen's friends and guests! I can still see Kossuth with his grey hair
and wrinkled brow, and Mazzini with his melancholy eyes and handsome
face; I can still hear the tones of Louis Blanc as he stands on the
platform of the lecture room and talks to us in excellent English of the
epoch of the Great Revolution. But the one man whose face and figure
dwell most vividly in my recollection is Orsini, the great Italian who,
after a lifetime spent in the attempt to deliver Tuscany and Lombardy
from the yoke of the tyrant, died under the guillotine in Paris, and by
his death secured for Italy her long-sought freedom. Orsini came to
Newcastle shortly after his escape from an Austrian dungeon at Mantua,
and addressed a great meeting in the Lecture Room. He spoke English
fairly well; but it was the appearance of the man, and the knowledge of
all that he had suffered in the struggle for Italian freedom, that
appealed to one more eloquently than his words. Never had I seen any man
whose appearance equalled that of this Italian martyr who died as an
assassin. His features were almost faultless, whilst his jet-black hair
set off the lustrous pallor of his complexion with extraordinary
effectiveness. Attired in fashionable evening dress, his hands encased in
white kid gloves, and a smile, gentle rather than pathetic, lighting up
his beautiful face, he looked the last man in the world whom one would
naturally associate with desperate deeds. Yet, not many weeks after I had
grasped his hand, he had brought about the terrible attempt upon the life
of the Emperor Napoleon, when the latter was driving through the Rue
Lepelletier, Paris, by which many innocent persons perished, and was
DigitalOcean Referral Badge