Kossuth's Secluded Life.

Te Aroha News, Volume VIII, Issue 488, 12 July 1890, Page 5

Kossuth's Secluded Life.

Tub Hungarian sculptor, M. Josef Rona, who some time ago visited M Louis Kossuth in Turin, reports some interesting statements which were made at an interview by the aged ex - Dictator. In reply to an inquiry as to where he intended to spend tho coming summer, M. Kossuth said:

‘ You arc touching ->n a delicate point, bub I am not ashamed to confess my poverty. I cannot always afford to change my residonco with the season. Nevertheless, I like to stroll about the country during She summer, bub I avoid places where other men throng. I profer solitary naturo in the mountains. She, at any rate, does not doceive me. Here in Turin I lead a perfectly secluded life. I visit no Italians and receive scarcely any visitors. As a rule I am at homo to no one. For many years I have sought forgetfulness in work. This is now no longer possible. I am a broken-down old man. Work fatigues me, and the painful wretchedness of solitudo weighs daily more and more upon me. I run alone with my memories, alone with my bitter experiences. I was formerly unable to compass my aims without helpful fellowworkers, and then I learned to understand mankind. Plato is right; life is no blessing, no gift, but a duty ; no gain, but rather a loss. When, on the brink of the grave, a man makes up his account, the balance is always on the wrong side. I have asked myself whether life was worth living. One only comfort remains to me. I have persistently follow’ed fluty.’ The three additional volumos of M. Kossuth's memoirs, which are shortly to appear, will contain, among other things, his remarks upon tho policy of Napoleon 111. toward the Vienna court, and upon the endeavours of the people to retain his secular power, in addition to an interesting interview between Prince Bismarck and the French Ambassador, Comte dc St. Vail for. Tho volumes will also reproduce several letters addressed by the late Count Julius Andrnssy to Kossuth during Count Andrnssy’s exile; a letter from Richard Cobde.i to Kossuth at the time cf the Crimean War, and reminiscences of eminent Hungarian statesmen like Count Stephen Szachenyi and Baron Nicolaus Weszclenyi, besides many other interesting records. At tho close of hie preface Kossuth states that the Hungarian Deputy M. Ignaz Helfy has revised the work, as ho himself w-as painfully conscious of the fact that, after his forcy-onc years of exile, ho had not kept up with tho advantages of the Hungarian tongue.