Napoleon, who was a party to the conference, threatened him with a revolution in Italy and in Hungary. Thus was it made apparent that the independence of Hungary was no part of the purpose of Napoleon. As to Kossuth, his only solace was in the reflection that he had stayed the tendency to revolution on the soil of Hungary, and thus his countrymen had been saved from new calamities.
Thenceforward Kossuth had before him only a life of exile; but he reserved for his children the right, and he set before them the duty, of returning to their native land.
I am giving large space to the visit of Kossuth in the belief
that the country is moving away from the doctrines of
self-government as a common right of mankind, as they were
taught by him and as they were accepted generally until we
approached the end of the nineteenth century.
In Faneuil Hall Kossuth made these striking remarks. Addressing himself to America, he said: “You have prodigiously grown by your freedom of seventy-five years; but what are seventy-five years to take for a charter of immortality! No, no, my humble tongue tells the record of eternal truth. A privilege never can be lasting. Liberty restricted to one nation never can be sure. You may say ‘we are the prophets of God,’ but you shall not say, ‘God is only our God.’ The Jews have said so and the pride of Jerusalem lies in the dust! Our Saviour taught all humanity to say ‘Our Father in Heaven,’ and his Jerusalem is ‘lasting to the end of days’.”
His style was that of a scholar who had mastered the English language by the aid of books. His idiomatic expressions were few. In one of his speeches when urging his audience to demand active intervention in behalf of Hungary he attempted to use the phrase, “You should take time by the forelock.” At the last word he came to a dead pause and
