Neither is it to be said that this was a holiday, or an occasion of peculiar festivity--it was a common week-day--such as our miserable manufacturing population spends from sun-rise to sun-down, in confined, incessant, unhealthy toil--to earn, at its conclusion, the inadequate reward of health and happiness so wasted. The contrast struck me forcibly--it rejoiced my heart; it surely was an object of contemplation, that any one who had a heart must have rejoiced in. Presently, however, came the following reflections:--These people are happy--their wants are satisfied, their desires fulfilled--their capacities of enjoyment meet with full employment--they are well fed--well clothed--well housed--moderate labour insures them all this, and leaves them leisure for such recreations as they are capable of enjoying; but how is it with me?--and I mean not _me myself_ alone, but all who, like myself, have received a higher degree of mental cultivation, whose estimate of happiness is, therefore, so much higher, whose capacity for enjoyment is so much more expanded and cultivated;--can I be satisfied with a race in a circular railroad car, or a swing between the lime-trees? where are my peculiar objects of pleasure and recreation? where are the picture-galleries--the sculptures--the works of art and science--the countless wonders of human ingenuity and skill--the cultivated and refined society--the intercourse with men of genius, literature, scientific knowledge--where are all the sources from which I am to draw my recreations? They are not. The heart of a philanthropist may indeed be satisfied, but the intellectual man feels a dearth that is inexpressibly painful; and in spite of the real and great pleasure which I derived from the sight of so much enjoyment, I could not help desiring that enjoyment of another order were combined with it. Perhaps the two are incompatible; if so, I would not alter the present state of things if I could. The losers here are decidedly in the minority. Indeed, so much so, as hardly to form a class; they are a few individuals, scattered over the country, and of course their happiness ought not to come into competition with that of the mass of the people; but the Americans, at the same time that they make no provision whatever for the happiness of such a portion of their inhabitants, would be very angry if one were to say it was a very inconsiderable one, and yet that is the truth. [15] The climate of this country is the scape-goat upon which all the ill looks and ill health of the ladies is laid; but while they are brought up as effeminately as they are, take as little exercise, live in rooms like ovens during the winter, and marry as early as they do, it will appear evident that many causes combine, with an extremely variable climate, to sallow their complexions, and destroy their constitutions.