ole audience rose and cheered
vehemently]--the faithful companion of my life,--of her, who for months
and for months was hunted by my country's tyrants, with no hope, no
support, no protection, but at the humble threshold of the hard-working
people, as noble and generous as they are poor--in the name of my poor
little children, who when so young as to be scarcely conscious of life,
had already to learn what an Austrian prison is--in the name of all
this, and what is still worse, in the name of liberty trodden down, I
claim, ladies of New York, your protecting sympathy for my country's
cause. Nobody can do more for it than you. The heart of man is as soft
wax in your tender hands. Mould it, ladies; mould it into the form of
generous compassion for my country's wrongs, inspire it with the noble
feelings of your own hearts, inspire it with the consciousness of your
country's power, dignity, and might. You are the framers of man's
character. Whatever be the fate of man, one stamp he always bears on his
brow--that which the mother's hand impressed upon the soul of the child.
The smile of your lips can make a hero out of the coward, and a generous
man out of the egotist; one word from you inspires the youth to noble
resolutions; the lustre of your eyes is the fairest reward for the toils
of life. You can kindle energy even in the breast of broken age, that
once more it may blaze up in a noble generous deed before it dies. All
this power you have. Use it, ladies, in behalf of your country's glory,
and for the benefit of oppressed humanity, and when you meet a cold
calculator, who thinks by arithmetic when he is called to feel the
wrongs of oppressed nations, convert him, ladies. Your smiles are
commands, and the truth which pours forth instinctively from your
hearts, is mightier than the logic articulated by any scholar. The Peri
excluded from Paradise, brought many generous gifts to heaven in order
to regain it. She brought the dying sigh of a patriot; the kiss of a
faithful girl imprinted upon the lips of her bridegroom, when they were
distorted by the venom of the plague. She brought many other fair gifts;
but the doors of Paradise opened before her only when she brought with
her the first prayer of a man converted to charity and brotherly love
for his oppressed brethren and humanity.

Remember the power which you have, and which I have endeavoured to point
out in a few brief words. Remember this, and form associations;
est