his apartments was transported in a moment from bustling, prosperous,
and republican New York, to the land of song, of martyrdom, and of
antiquity. The soulful ardor and childlike ingenuousness, the keen
perceptions and earnest will of Foresti suggested an obsolete, or at
least rare type of character; he belonged essentially to the olden days
of loyalty and lore which gave birth to self-reliance on the one hand,
and disinterested feeling on the other. His manner and conversation
had, as it were, an historical as well as national flavor, by virtue
whereof we were borne away from the prosaic and practical spirit of the
age, to the days of chivalry, feudal zeal, and genuine humanity,--when
faith was an inspiration, friendship a moral fact, and manhood, in its
virile simplicity, greater than wealth. Nor were the generous exile's
humble surroundings alien to these impressions: the effigies of his
country's poets were the favorite ornaments of his sitting-room; a
volume of Foscolo on the table, or a fresh letter from Silvio Pellico
under his snuffbox,--the grim, old-fashioned type of his _Sentenza_, as
it was originally distributed through Austrian Italy, and hanging in
its black frame, a memorial of startling import to a freeman's eyes,--a
landscape representing the Castle of Ferrara, the far-away scene of his
youthful life,--and a primitive engraving from one of the old masters
of that city, dedicated to him in one of those euphonious inscriptions
peculiar to Italian artists,--these and such as these tokens of his
experience and tastes gave interesting significance to his
companionship. Nor were indications of present consideration and
usefulness wanting: flowers or dainty needle-work, the offerings of his
fair pupils, applications to him, as President of the Italian
Benevolent Society, diplomas from American colleges, and invitations to
the country, to dinner, and to domestic _fetes_, from the numerous
friends he had won in the free land of his adoption, gave evidence of
social enjoyment and genial activity.