I feel it a great blessing that you have no anxiety about your work. I am glad, both for its sake, and for yours; for I am sure you could not recover, as we wish you to do, if you felt things were likely to go ill. I hope this change will prove an improvement in its organisation, and the beginning of an easier life for you. You have climbed the hill far enough to look back, and survey the road passed over; and reflection will suggest to you by what future paths the goal you set before yourself is most likely to be reached. Accept this interval, as a precious time lent you for retrospect and prospect, and for renewing the bodily health that you have expended so unsparingly.
Your loving Mother.
c/o George MacDonald, Esq.,
Villa Cattaneo,
February 9th, 1878.
Octavia to Emily.
I should greatly prefer, if you have time, that you should train a lady on each Committee[[88]] to wise relief with the fund,[[89]] rather than spend it on entertainments. You see I want to distribute power, not to accumulate it, and to bring it near the workers, who are face to face with the poor.
We know no news except what we learn in private letters; not a creature here sees a paper. I don’t know, if the six million is voted, nor whether the Pope is dead.
MEMORIES OF MAZZINI IN GENOA
Villa Cattaneo, Nervi,