"
* * * * *
The remarks contained in the former of the two letters here
transcribed seem to make this a proper place for recording "what I
remember" of Garibaldi.
My first acquaintance with him was through my very old, and very
highly valued, loved, and esteemed friend, Jessie White Mario. The
Garibaldi _culte_ has been with her truly and literally the object
(apart from her devoted love for her husband, an equally ardent
worshipper at the same shrine) for which she has lived, and for which
she has again and again affronted death. For she accompanied him in
all his Italian campaigns as a hospital nurse, and on many occasions
rendered her inestimable services in that capacity under fire. If
Peard has been called "Garibaldi's Englishman," truly Jessie White
Mario deserves yet more emphatically the title of "Garibaldi's
Englishwoman." She has published a large life of Garibaldi, which is
far and away the best and most trustworthy account of the man and
his wonderful works. She is not blind to the spots on the sun of her
adoration, nor does she seek to conceal the fact that there were such
spots, but she is a true and loyal worshipper all the same.
Her husband was--alas! that I should write so; for no Indian wife's
life was ever more ended by her suttee than Jessie Mario's life has
practically been ended by her husband's untimely death!--Alberto Mario
was among the, I fear, few exceptions to Peard's remarks on the men
who were around Garibaldi.
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