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 olive complexion, with black hair and beard. He always wore a black, tight-fitting frock-coat, with a black silk handkerchief round his neck in place of a collar. Except for his mother, women played a very small part in Mazzini's life. One woman, who was a widow called Giudetta Sidoli, kept up an affectionate correspondence with him for a time, but there was never any question of their marrying. His work, his poverty, and his restless wandering made it impossible for him to settle down as a married man.

After forming a "Young Europe" association of men who believed in liberty, equality, and fraternity for all mankind, and after issuing a newspaper called Young Switzerland he was forced by the authorities to leave Switzerland, and he took refuge in England. As a lover of the beauties of nature, he complained at first at having to go to what he called "the sunless and musicless island." "We have lost," he wrote from London, "even the sky which the veriest wretch on the Continent can look at." In time, however, he came to regard with great affection the country which has been a home and refuge to many disconsolate wanderers and outcasts from foreign lands.

Mazzini came to England in 1837, and was obliged to live at first in great poverty. But he had not come to rest. It was always a hard struggle for him. After a heated correspondence with his father, he ceased to receive any money from home, and he got into such low water that he actually had to pawn his rings,