He had accepted engagements to appear in various towns in England, where people would as wildly greet him as the people of London had done. When it was announced that he had left England, it was believed that the Emperor of the French had incited the Government to prevail upon Garibaldi to leave the country. Others conjectured that Mr. Gladstone had whispered something to him which had caused the Italian hero to depart. I asked about it from one who knew everything that took place--Sir James Stansfeld--and from him I learned that no foreign suggestion had been made, that nothing whatever had been said to Garibaldi. His leaving was entirely his own act. He had reason to believe that Louis Napoleon was capable of anything; but with all his heroism, Garibaldi was imaginative and proud He fancied his presence in England was an embarrassment to the Government. He being the guest of the nation, they would never own to it or say it. But his departure might be a relief to them, nevertheless. And therefore he went. His sensitiveness of honour shrank from his being a constructive inconvenience to a nation to whom he owed so much and for whom he cared so much. It was an instance of the disappointment imagination may cause in politics.*
* Some who read Mr. Morley's account of "Garibaldi's Departure" in his "Life of Gladstone" will think that Garibaldi did not require much imagination to see that he was not wanted to stay in England. He heard, even from Mr. Gladstone, words of solicitude for his health, if he visited the many towns he had promised--and not one suggestion that he should limit the number, which could do him no harm. There could be but one inference from this and Garibaldi drew it.
But Garibaldi was a poet as well as a soldier. Like the author of the "Marseillaise," Korner and Petofe, he could write inspiring verse, as witness his "Political Poem" in reply to one Victor Hugo wrote upon him, which Sir Edwin Arnold, the "Oxford Graduate" of that day, translated in 1868. Those do not understand Garibaldi who fail to recognise that he had poetic as well as martial fire.
* Both poems, the one by Hugo and Garibaldi's in reply, were published with a preface by the present writer.