h up at heaven's gate sings as loud a song of
praise, whether villains or lovers listen to its lays. Places are what
we make them. I fear there are many blackguards at Cremorne; the women
most of them are undoubtedly hetaerae, and yet what a place it is for
fun! How jolly are all you meet! How innocent are all the
amusements,--the ascent of the balloon--the dancing--the equestrian
performances--the comic song--the illuminations--the fire-works--the
promenade on the grass lawn or in the gas-lit paths; the impulses that
come to us in the warm breath of the summer eve, how grateful are they
all, and what a change from Cheap-side or from noisy manufactories still
more confined! By this light the scene is almost a fairy one. Can there
be danger here? Is there here nothing artistic--nothing refined--nothing
appealing to the imagination? Come here, Mrs Stowe, and judge. You will
scandalize, I know, that portion of the religious public that never yet
has looked at man and society honestly in the face, but you will better
understand the frightful hypocrisies of our domestic life; you will
better understand how it is that a religion which we pay so much for, and
to which we render so much outward homage, has so little hold upon the
heart and life. There is no harm in Cremorne, if man is born merely to
enjoy himself--to eat, drink, be merry, and die. I grant, it is rather
inconvenient for a young man who has his way to fight in life to indulge
a taste for pleasure, to launch out into expenses beyond his means, to
mix with company that is more amusing than moral, and to keep late hours;
and young fellows who go to Cremorne must run all these risks. It may do
you, my good sir, no harm to go there. You have arrived at an age when
the gaieties of life have ceased to be dangerous. You come up by one of
the Citizen boats to Chelsea after business hours, and stroll into the
garden and view the balloon, or sit out the ballet, or gaze with a leaden
eye upon the riders, and the clowns, and the dancing, or the fireworks,
and return home in decent time to bed; and if you waste a pound or two,
you can afford it. But it is otherwise with inflammable youth--a clerk,
it may be, in a merchant's warehouse on 30_s._ a-week, and it is really
alarming to think what excitements are thus held out to the passions, at
all times so difficult to control. There are the North Woolwich
Gardens--there is Highbury Barn--all rivalling Cremorne, and a