1. Mazzini gave his opinion of the Carlyles in letters to his mother, 19 March, and Eleanora Ruffini, 22 March: “Mrs. Carlyle is an exceptional woman. … There is a strange sympathy … if I do not give true friendship to her I certainly
will not to any others” (19 March). “A Scot with great qualities of heart and mind, the one among all these people with whom I am in closest sympathy and he
with me. We differ as to almost all our opinions but his are so sincere and disinterested that I respect him. … He has been
and I think still is, in spite of the fame which now surrounds him, unhappy. He has a wife of talent, with qualities of mind
and heart, who is not strong, and no children. They live outside the town and I go to see them every now and then. They are
not insular nor have they any other hurtful characteristics. I made friends with him, I think, because of an article I wrote
here after having met him, against a history book he had written, perhaps, surrounded as he is by stolid praise to which he
is totally indifferent, he liked my frankness” (22 March; trans., Scritti di Mazzini 19:32, 40–41).
