United States or Afghanistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I received from Pulzsky the clue to Kossuth's quarters, in a quiet street, Bayswater way, if I remember rightly, to which I was to go only late at night, and by some roundabout road, as the Austrian spies were always watching him.
Henceforward Kossuth's hopes were limited to pecuniary aid for himself and his family and friends, and to expressions of sympathy for his downtrodden country by individuals, by voluntary associations, and by municipalities. All his speeches after his visit to Washington were laden with one thought, viz., the duty of all free countries to resist the spread of absolutism.
In 1892, when the last large spot was visible, there was a notable aurora. The light rays reached so far south that to the people in New York it appeared like the reflection on the sky from a great fire. Francis Kossuth's effort to get the Austro-Hungarian bill delayed has not been successful. You remember he tried to get the bill referred to a certain committee.
In the mean time the movement among the students was assuming more decided proportions; and their demands related as usual to the great questions of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of teaching; and to these were added the demand for popular representation, the justifications for which they drew from Kossuth's speech of March 3d.
In several passages where I imperfectly understood the thought, I have had the advantage of Kossuth's personal explanations, which have enabled me to clear up the defective report, or real obscurities of his words.
It seems difficult for the outsider to-day quite to sign to this point of view, when one remembers Louis Napoleon's deception and his broken honour and cruelty. There is a very enlightening and suggestive passage in one of Robert Louis Stevenson's books, "To travel happily is better than to arrive." In Kossuth's case the reverse was true.
Newman was the recipient of Kossuth's communications concerning this secret interview with Napoleon. I quote Napoleon's words as recorded by Newman. "The French army is very formidable; but I cannot pretend that in it I have such superiority to Austria that I may expect easy or certain success. My only clear superiority is on the sea.
Had Kossuth remained true to the faith which he proclaimed in this speech, it is within the limits of probability that the whole Revolution of 1848-1849 might have had a different result. The Hungarian chancellor, Mailath, was so alarmed at Kossuth's speech that he hindered the setting out of the deputation which was to have presented the address to the Emperor.
But I had lived through the episode of Kossuth's visit to us and his vain endeavor to raise funds for the Hungarian cause in 1851, when we were a younger and nobler nation than now, with hearts if not hands, opener to the "oppressed of Europe"; the oppressed of America, the four or five millions of slaves, we did not count.
Webster compared Kossuth to Wycliffe, by the quotation of the lines: "The Avon to the Severn runs, The Severn to the sea; And Wycliffe's dust shall spread abroad, Wide as the waters be." It is not easy to form an opinion of Kossuth's place as an orator, when considered in comparison or in contrast with other orators.
Word Of The Day