"We pursue the same end--progressive improvement, association, transformation of the corrupted medium in which we are now living, overthrow of all idolatries, shams, lies, and conventionalities. We both want man to be not the poor, passive, cowardly, phantasmagoric unreality of the actual time, thinking in one way and acting in another; bending to power which he hates and despises, carrying empty Popish, or thirty-nine article formulas _on_ his brow and none within; but a fragment of the living truth, a real individual being linked to collective humanity, the bold seeker of things to come; the gentle, mild, loving, yet firm, uncompromising, inexorable apostle of all that is just and heroic--the Priest, the Poet, and the Prophet. We widely differ as to the _how_ and _why_. I do dimly believe that all we are now struggling, hoping, discussing, and fighting for, is a _religious_ question. We want a new intellect of life; we long to tear off one more veil from the ideal, and to realise as much as we can of it; we thirst after a deeper knowledge of _what_ we are and of the _why_ we are. We want a _new heaven_ and a _new earth_. We may not all be now conscious of this, but the whole history of mankind bears witness to the inseparable union of these terms. The clouds which are now floating between our heads and God's sky will soon vanish and a bright sun shine on high. We may have to pull down the despot, the arbitrary dispenser of _grace_ and _damnation_, but it will only be to make room for the Father and Educator. "Ever faithfully yours, "Joseph Mazzini." Another incident has instruction in it, still necessary and worth remembering in the political world. In 1872 I found in the _Boston Globe_, then edited by Edin Ballou, a circumstantial story by the _Constitutional_ of that day, setting forth that Sir James Hudson, our Minister at Turin, begged Cavour to accord an interview to an English gentleman. When Cavour received him, he was surprised by the boldness, lucidity, depth, and perspicacity of his English visitor, and told him that if he (Cavour) had a countryman of like quality, he would resign the Presidency of the Council in favour of him, whereupon the "Englishman" handed Cavour his card bearing the name of Joseph Mazzini, much to his astonishment. There are seven things fatal to the truth of this story received and circulated throughout Europe without question:-- 1. Sir James Hudson could never have introduced to the Italian Minister a person as an Englishman, whom Sir James knew to be an Italian. 2. Nor was Mazzini a man who would be a party to such an artifice. 3. Cavour would have known Mazzini the moment he saw him. 4. Mazzini's Italian was such as only an Italian could speak, and Cavour would know it.