Grand are the liberators of mankind! Let them hear the
grateful applanse of the nations, whatever their fortune! Yesterday we gave our
tears; to-day our hosannas are heard. Providence deals in these compensations.
John Brown failed in America, but Garibaldi has triumphed in Europe. Mankind,
shuddering at the infamous gallows of Charlestown, takes courage once more at
the flashing sword of Catalafimi.1
_______________
1 Victor Hugo's “Actes et Paroles pendant l'Exil”
(1859-60). In the édition Definitive of his complete works,
which was still going through the press at his death, in 1885, the author added
this note to the passages cited above: "Victor Hugo avait, à propos de John
Brown, prédit la
guerre civile à l’Amérique,
et, a propos de Garibaldi, prédit 1'unité à l’ltalie. Ces dcux prédictions
se réalisèrent.” He
had a right to claim this.
SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of
John Brown, p. 631
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