ere, but press daily
onward to claim our heritage.

Paris! I was sad to leave thee, thou wonderful focus, where ignorance
ceases to be a pain, because there we find such means daily to lessen
it. It is the only school where I ever found abundance of teachers who
could bear being examined by the pupil in their special branches. I
must go to this school more before I again cross the Atlantic, where
often for years I have carried about some trifling question without
finding the person who could answer it. Really deep questions we must
all answer for ourselves; the more the pity, then, that we get not
quickly through with a crowd of details, where the experience of
others might accelerate our progress.

Leaving by _diligence_, we pursued our way from twelve o'clock on
Thursday till twelve at night on Friday, thus having a large share of
magnificent moonlight upon the unknown fields we were traversing. At
Chalons we took boat and reached Lyons betimes that afternoon. So
soon as refreshed, we sallied out to visit some of the garrets of the
weavers. As we were making inquiries about these, a sweet little girl
who heard us offered to be our guide. She led us by a weary, winding
way, whose pavement was much easier for her feet in their wooden
_sabots_ than for ours in Paris shoes, to the top of a hill, from
which we saw for the first time "the blue and arrowy Rhone." Entering
the light buildings on this high hill, I found each chamber
tenanted by a family of weavers,--all weavers; wife, husband, sons,
daughters,--from nine years old upward,--each was helping. On one side
were the looms; nearer the door the cooking apparatus; the beds were
shelves near the ceiling: they climbed up to them on ladders. My sweet
little girl turned out to be a wife of six or seven years' standing,
with two rather sickly-looking children; she seemed to have the
greatest comfort that is possible amid the perplexities of a hard and
anxious lot, to judge by the proud and affectionate manner in which
she always said "_mon mari_," and by the courteous gentleness of his
manner toward her. She seemed, indeed, to be one of those persons on
whom "the Graces have smiled in their cradle," and to whom a natural
loveliness of character makes the world as easy as it can be made
while the evil spirit is still so busy choking the wheat with tares.
I admired her graceful manner of introducing us into those dark little
rooms, and she was affectionately received by al