e at night,
and retire to sleep towards morning. In consequence of this, the
subordinate classes, who aim at gentility, gradually fall into the same
practice. The influence of this custom extends across the ocean, and
here, in this democratic land, we find many, who measure their grade of
gentility by the late hour at which they arrive at a party. And this
aristocratic tendency is growing upon us, so that, throughout the
Nation, the hours for visiting and retiring are constantly becoming
later, while the hours for rising correspond in lateness.

The question, then, is one which appeals to American women, as a matter
of patriotism; as having a bearing on those great principles of
democracy, which we conceive to be equally the principles of
Christianity. Shall we form our customs on the principle that labor is
degrading, and indolence genteel? Shall we assume, by our practice, that
the interests of the great mass are to be sacrificed for the pleasures
and honors of a privileged few? Shall we ape the customs of aristocratic
lands, in those very practices which result from principles and
institutions that we condemn? Shall we not rather take the place to
which we are entitled, as the leaders, rather than the followers, in the
customs of society, turn back the tide of aristocratic inroads, and
carry through the whole, not only of civil and political, but of social
and domestic, life, the true principles of democratic freedom and
equality? The following considerations may serve to strengthen an
affirmative decision.

The first, relates to the health of a family. It is a universal law of
physiology, that all living things flourish best in the light.
Vegetables, in a dark cellar, grow pale and spindling,[H] and children,
brought up in mines, are wan and stinted. This universal law, indicates
the folly of turning day into night, thus losing the genial influence,
which the light of day produces on all animated creation.

There is another phenomenon in the physiology of Nature, which equally
condemns this practice. It has been shown, that the purification of the
blood, in the lungs, is secured, by the oxygen of the atmosphere
absorbing its carbon and hydrogen. This combination forms carbonic acid
and water, which are expired from our lungs into the atmosphere. Now all
the vegetable world undergoes a similar process. In the light of day,
all the leaves of vegetables absorb carbon and expire oxygen, thus
supplying the air with it