By-ways of Europe - 1869 Author:Bayard Taylor Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: lessly at Mentana, and could, therefore, guess the mortification which accompanied him in his imprisonment (for such it virtually is) at Caprera. While, therefor... more »e, I should not have sought an interview after the glorious Sicilian and Calabrian campaign, or when the still excited world was reading Nelaton's bulletins from Spezzia, — so confounding myself with the multitude who always admire the hero of the day, and risk their necks to shake hands with him, — I felt a strong desire to testify such respect as the visit of a stranger implies, in Garibaldi's day of defeat and neglect. " I did not praise thee, when the crowd, Witched with the moment's inspiration, Vexed thy still ether with hosannas loud, And stamped their dusty adoration."1 Of all the people who crowded to see him at Spezzia in such throngs that a false Garibaldi, with bandaged foot, was arranged to receive the most of them, there is no ttace now. The same Americans who come from Paris chanting paeans to Napoleon III., go to Rome and are instantly stricken with sympathy for Pius IX., and a certain respect for the Papacy, temporal power included. They give Caprera a wide berth. Two or three steadfast English friends do what they can to make the hero's solitude pleasant, and he has still, as always, the small troop of Italian followers, who never forsake him, because they live from his substance. Before deciding to visit Caprera, I asked the candid advice of some of the General's most intimate friends in Florence. They assured me that scarcely any one had gone to see him for months past; that a visit from an American, who sympathized with the great and generous aims t6 which he has devoted his life, could not be otherwise than welcome ; and, while offering me cordial letters of introduction, declared th...« less