* * * * *

"As regards Mazzini, I am both glad and sorry. I cannot pretend to know
the _truth_, and fear to say what may unjustly disparage him; but he has
fallen a little in my secret judgment. I am _told_ (and I cannot test the
assertion) that Mazzini wrote to Italy to _implore_ his countrymen to be
patient, and not to make any attempts at resistance, even though the best
among them were slaughtered; and added: But if you will and must make your
attempt _now_, then by all means I shall come--not to conquer with you;
for of that I have no hope--but to die with you. Now I cannot learn
whether this was simultaneously with his writing to tell us that he was in
high hopes of success, and only wanted L3000 to turn probability into
something like certainty. If it was simultaneous, he is not the less
patriot; but he thinks 'the point of honour' requires he should tell a lie
to his English friends in order to get the wherewith to die a martyr's
death; and it makes it very hard to trust his simple truth in future. But
if (as one friend of his thinks) Mazzini's own opinion has changed, it
lowers one's notion of his discernment. In fact, it is scarcely credible
to _me_. There are those, I find, who have lately helped him to money,
expressly thinking it was a going to martyrdom, but believing he was bent
on it, and that possibly he may now do more good to Italy by his death
than ever he can do by his life. I cannot take this view. I believe the
tyrants would have the good sense to destroy him so secretly that no moral
effect should follow from his death; and if he utterly disapproved of an
outbreak, I do not understand the 'honour' which should make him go to
useless destruction when his life may be so valuable. It is not the same
thing to an exile as to a soldier in a rank, for the exile necessarily
comes too late. However, I do not know whether at this instant Mazzini may
be disguised in Italy: he is so retired and so stealthy. I expect he will
(be) betrayed sooner or later, if he plays so bold a game. Nevertheless I