That bold and magnificent equestrian statue of Garibaldi crowns the heights of Rome, looking down upon the Eternal City; the dust of Mazzini rests in a village churchyard; but both live in the hearts of humanity as men who gave their lives to make men free.
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Garibaldi was born in the city of Nice in Eighteen Hundred Seven, being one of the advance-guard of a brigade of genius, for great men come in groups. His parents were poor, and being well under the heel of the priest, were only fairly honest. The father was a waterman who plied the Riviera in a leaky schooner—poling, rowing, or sailing, as Providence provided. Once the good man was returning home after a cruise where ill luck was at the helm. The priest had blessed him when he started, and would be on hand when he came back to receive his share of the loot, for business was then, and is yet, in Italy, a kind of legalized freebooting. Then it was that the honest fisherman lapsed and lifted the nets of another between the dawn and the day.
The son, then only twelve years of age, scorned the act and declared he would steal a ship or nothing. The boy was duly punished in the interests of piety and also to relieve the pent-up emotions of the parents.
The heroic spirit of Garibaldi was not a legacy from either his father or his mother. However, they dowered him with health and great bodily strength, and this physical superiority had much, no doubt, to do in shaping his life's course.
Men fall victims to their facility. Musicians, for instance, often become intoxicated by their own sweet sounds, and are lured on to unseemliness, making much discord in life's symphony.
The late-lamented Brann had a felicity and a facility in the use of words that finally cost him his life. Men with pistol facility and word felicity die by the pistol. The brain of the prizefighter does not convolve: he relies more on his "jabs" than on thoughts that burn —and those who live by the hammer die by the hammer.
There is no doubt that Garibaldi's romantic career in a lifelong fight for freedom was born of a liking for the fray, to express it bluntly, with freedom as a convenient excuse. This sounds unkind, but it is not. Garibaldi loved peace so much that he was willing to fight for it any day.
While yet a youth he became captain of his father's craft, and
Garibaldi Senior took the wheel and obeyed orders.
Then we hear that Garibaldi was an expert swimmer, a rather unusual accomplishment for a sailor. He was always on the lookout for an opportunity to dive overboard, disrobing in the air, and rescuing the perishing. There is even a legend of his having saved a washer-woman from drowning when he was but eight years old. A captious critic has remarked that probably the old lady fell into her washtub. Thereupon, a kinsman of the great man comes forward to give the facts, which are that the woman was doing laundry-work by the riverside, and stooping over, fell into the damp and was rescued by the boy. But it also seems on the word of Garibaldi himself that the woman would not have fallen in had not the boy suddenly appeared behind her playing bear, thus bringing about the catastrophe which he averted.