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90 BIANCA MILESI MOJON.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
About This Time Madame Mojon Lost Her Mo...
not see the whole , aim only to relieve as much suffering * as is permitted by the social organization under which we live . Therefore
I would not , xipon system , exclude any form--of charity . I should like to be able to give to hospitalsdispensariesschools ; I would aid
liberally such as are overtaken , by great misfortunes , . I would give timely aid to a man trembling between success and ruin _; but I
must give penny by _jDenny , to the beggar I meet , the little help that may , in his exigency , save him from the extremity of suffering . I
will not say that I would never give to _children , to the able-bodied —to those whom I know to be vicious ; for it may be that at the
very moment when I refuse by rule , hunger may overtake them . " In practice I have never been satisfied with any habit I have
adopted . At -Pescia _[ M . Sisxnondi ' s paternal residence , and occasionally his own ] , I was assailed by hundreds of children to whose
bad habits I contributed , who laughed at me while they asked my charityand who rendered our walks intolerable ; so that we
resolved , , if we again returned to Italy , we would not do as we had done . How , then , can I give you a rule , who am so dissatisfied
with my own practice ? " I know that in England many religious persons have made for
themselves a law , which they have probably borrowed from Judaic institutions—that is , to devote to charities of all sorts a tenth part of
their revenues ; this proportion seems to me satisfactory . It secures us from harming society , and from wronging our families or
ourselves . Perhaps it is from carelessness that I have not been able to limit myself to it , and perhaps I should be influenced by the
varying wants of others ; but in looking back and making up my accounts , it seems to me that when I have been nearest to this
proportion I am best satisfied with the result . " Dear friendI have answered your question as wall as I am able ;
, but I am no better satisfied with my words than with my doings . " We feel that an apology is due to our readers for any hiatus in
our translation of this letter , rather than for giving it at so imich length . It contains so much philosophical truth , and such candid
-confessions of the impossibility of attaining absolute certainty by human reasoning ; it is so rich with the pure gold of Sismondi's
-character , his simplicity , his tender , generous , and religions impulses , that we do not wonder Madame Mojon had it stereotyped ,
nor that she presented to her friends copies of it as precious gifts . Happily has Souvestre called this eminent man , " Soldat de la seule
veritL " ¦ Madame Mojon continued to manifest the same interest in
_edixcation and the progress of society in general , which she showed in _earlier dayswhen Manzoni called her " the mother of her country . _"
Her sons were , educated under her own eye , they received their instruction from heraided in some branches by private tutors . Her
eldest son owed to , her the mastery of four languages at the age of
sixteen , when he entered the Polytechnic School . The younger nad
90 Bianca Milesi Mojon.
90 BIANCA _MILESI MOJON .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), April 1, 1861, page 90, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01041861/page/18/
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