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Recollections of General Garibaldi, Or, Travels from Rome to Lucerne
Recollections of General Garibaldi Or Travels from Rome to Lucerne Author:Giuseppe Garibaldi Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: GAUIBALDI AT HOME A VISIT TO THE MEDITERRANEAN ISLANDS LA MADDALENA AND CAPKERA. INTRODUCTION. Among the artists who graced Rome with their presen... more »ce during the winter of 1849— that winter so prolific of political hopes and vicissitudes—there came one, whose extraordinary performance on the mandolin excited the greatest astonishment and delight. His name was Vimercati, an affable old man, whose courteous manners drew forth as much friendly sympathy as his beautiful music inspired admiration. Myself initiated in the difficulties of the mandolin, I was, perhaps more than others of his audiences, enraptured with the marvellous tones which he brought out of his instrument.I sought his acquaintance, and he soon became one of my most assiduous visitors. One evening, as I was surrounded by a little circle of friends, my virtuoso so completely surpassed himself, that I could not help asking him what could possibly have induced him to devote his incomparable talent to so ungrateful an instrument ? His reply was charmingly naive. " Madam," said he, " it was precisely because all other artists seemed to despise the poor mandolin that I declared myself its champion, and determined to rescue it from what has so long been its fate, the accompaniment of the vulgar songs of the common people." My dear reader, I hope, will not think that I have the presumption to compare the feeble powers of my pen with the musical genius of the master of whom I have spoken; but, in calling public attention to the insignificant island of Maddalena, a rock that has been almost forgotten since the time of the Romans, I fancy I hear a murmur of surprise, to which,adopting the idea of my friend Vimercati, I would answer " It, is precisely because it is so neglected and forgotten, and that ...« less