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reader of the following pages, it is believed, will decide that
Margaret Fuller deserves to rank with the latter class of travellers,
while not neglectful of those details which it is well to learn and
remember.
Twelve years ago she journeyed, in company with several friends, on

the Lakes, and through some of the Western States. Returning, she
published a volume describing this journey, which seems worthy of
republication. It seems so because it rather gives an idea of Western
scenery and character, than enters into guide-book statements which
would be all erroneous now.
Beside this, it is much a record of thoughts as well as things, and those
thoughts have lost none of their significance now. It gives us also
knowledge of Indian character, and impressions respecting that much
injured and fast vanishing race, which justice to them makes it
desirable should be remembered. The friends of Madame Ossoli will be
glad to make permanent this additional proof of her sympathy with all
the oppressed, no matter whether that oppression find embodiment in
the Indian or the African, the American or the European.
The second part of the present volume gives my sister's impressions
and observations during her European journey and residence in Italy.
This is done through letters, which originally appeared in the New
York Tribune but have never before been gathered into book form.
There may be a degree of incompleteness, sometimes perhaps
inaccuracy, in these letters, which are inseparable attendants upon
letter-writing during a journey or amid exciting and warlike scenes.
None can lament more than I that their writer lives not to revise them.
Some errors, too, were doubtless made in the original printing of these
letters, owing to her handwriting not being easily read by those who
were not familiar with it, and very probably some such errors may have
escaped my notice in the revision, especially as many emendations
must be conjectural, the original manuscript not now existing.
There is one fact, however, which gives this part of the volume a high
value. Madame Ossoli was in Rome during the most eventful period of
its modern history. She was almost the only American who remained
there during the Italian Revolution, and the siege of the city. Her
marriage with the Marquis Ossoli, who was Captain of the Civic Guard
and active in the republican councils and army, and her own ardent love
of freedom, and sacrifices for it, brought her into immediate
acquaintance with the leaders in the revolutionary army, and made her

cognizant of their plans, their motives, and their characters.
Unsuccessful for a time as has been that struggle for freedom, it was
yet a noble one, and its true history should be known in this country
and in all lands, that justice may be done to those who sacrificed much,
some even life, in behalf of liberty. Her peculiar fitness to write the
history of this struggle is well expressed by Mr. Greeley, in his
Introduction to one of her volumes recently published.[A] "Of Italy's
last struggle for liberty and light," he says, "she might not merely say,
with the Grattan of Ireland's kindred effort, half a century earlier, 'I
stood by its cradle; I followed its hearse.' She might fairly claim to have
been a portion of its incitement, its animation, its informing soul. She
bore more than a woman's part in its conflicts and its perils; and the
bombs of that ruthless army which a false and traitorous government
impelled against the ramparts of Republican Rome, could have stilled
no voice more eloquent in its exposures, no heart more lofty in its
defiance, of the villany which so wantonly drowned in blood the hopes,
while crushing the dearest rights, of a people, than those of Margaret
Fuller."
[Footnote A: Introduction to Papers on Literature and Art, p. 8.]
Inadequate, indeed, are these letters as a memorial and vindication of
that struggle, in comparison with the history which Madame Ossoli had
written, and which perished with her; but well do they deserve to be
preserved, as the record of a clear-minded and true-hearted eyewitness
of, and participator in, this effort to establish a new and better Roman
Republic. In one respect they have an interest higher than would the
history. They were written during the struggle, and show the
fluctuations of hope and despondency-which animated those most
deeply interested. I have thought it right to leave unchanged all
expressions of her opinion and feeling, even when it is evident from the
letters themselves that these were gradually somewhat modified by
ensuing events. Especially did this change occur in regard to the Pope,
whom she at first regarded, in common with all lovers of freedom in
this and other lands, with a hopefulness which was doomed to a cruel
disappointment. She was,