whatever
may be their present position, have, in common with all of us, brothers,
sisters, or other relations busy in workshop and dairy, and who have
scarcely washed from their own professional hands the soil of labor, to
make very marked demonstrations of astonishment at the appearance of a
magazine whose papers are written by factory girls. As if the
compatibility of mental cultivation with bodily labor and the equality
and brotherhood of the human family were still open questions, depending
for their decision very much on the production of positive proof that
essays may be written and carpets woven by the same set of fingers!

The truth is, our democracy lacks calmness and solidity, the repose and
self-reliance which come of long habitude and settled conviction. We
have not yet learned to wear its simple truths with the graceful ease
and quiet air of unsolicitous assurance with which the titled European
does his social fictions. As a people, we do not feel and live out our
great Declaration. We lack faith in man,--confidence in simple
humanity, apart from its environments.

"The age shows, to my thinking, more infidels to Adam,
Than directly, by profession, simple infidels to God."

Elizabeth B. Browning.

TAKING COMFORT.

For the last few days the fine weather has lured me away from books and
papers and the close air of dwellings into the open fields, and under
the soft, warm sunshine, and the softer light of a full moon. The
loveliest season of the whole year--that transient but delightful
interval between the storms of the "wild equinox, with all their wet,"
and the dark, short, dismal days which precede the rigor of winter--is
now with us. The sun rises through a soft and hazy atmosphere; the
light mist-clouds melt gradually away before him; and his noontide light
rests warm and clear on still woods, tranquil waters, and grasses green
with the late autumnal rains. The rough-wooded slopes of Dracut,
overlooking the falls of the river; Fort Hill, across the Concord, where
the red man made his last stand, and where may still be seen the trench
which he dug around his rude fortress; the beautiful woodlands on the
Lowell and Tewksbury shores of the Concord; the cemetery; the Patucket
Falls,--all within the reach of a moderate walk,--offer at this season
their latest and loveliest attractions.

One fine morning, not long ago, I strolled down